One Honest Heart
by Andreas K N
Summary: A missing Dementor leaves Azkaban in turmoil. "That was when the news broke about the other story, the one I would eventually be the only one left to cover. The only one left alive." (HarryDraco slash) COMPLETED
1. Delivery

**1. Delivery**

There were cold whispers stalking Lucius Malfoy through the dark corridors of Malfoy Manor; the silent suggestion of a madman's gibbering; the prowling sensation of some strange creature (not a man at all, though madness hung in the air, swinging like a lynched soul's innocence) tied to him, leech-like, through some invisible snare, slowly strangling all life, all remnants of joy, out of him.

Every loose object lining his path looked deadly, lethal, a potential tool towards the destruction of his mortal flesh. Every ancient battleaxe a swift blow, every knife a quick slice, every small pike a final fall.

Everywhere on the oppressive, looming, towering walls, paintings joined in the screaming silence; ancestors shivered and sneered; fair maidens fluttered to attention, their eyes unfocused but not as vacant as before, pupils dilated, following his shaky progress, small smiles surfaced where scowls had once seemed a fixture; creatures cowering or gone; suns taking refuge in angry, billowing clouds; a once sleeping dragon undulating inside its smoky darkness, eyes on fire, claws tearing at the ancient canvas.

It was as if all the life seeping out of Lucius – his unwinding thread of fate – was flowing into the paintings, weaving itself into their canvases, inspiring a level of sentience, of intent, of willpower never intended. A desire to break free.

Lucius hurried his steps. The icy presence swept along, a shadow of himself, a nagging conscience not quite his own. Outside, the wind refused to howl and the breaking waves were too distant to be heard. Silence ruled supreme, a dictator of evil dreams and living nightmares.

Malfoys did not break into a run over figments of the imagination. Malfoys did not turn around to face invisible foes. But Malfoys did sweat as much as any peasant, however much they wished it was not so.

Malfoys still felt cold. They fought fright, commanded fear, but froze like any mortal prey.

Lucius threw the door open, basking in the warmth billowing into the corridor but frozen to the spot by the cold stare of his guest.

'Don't you ever knock, Malfoy?'

'I apologise, my lord. Force of habit.'

'You told me to make myself at home,' the red eyes glowed, 'and I never share mastery of my home. You would be wise to remember that while I am here, Lucius.'

'Of course.' The deposed master of the manor pushed the door closed, jerking further into the room, eyes wide, restless.

'Something the matter?' It was not a friendly inquiry.

'What? No. No! Nothing.'

'Good.'

'It's just all so – silent.'

'_Good_.'

'Apologies, master. I – have what you requested.' Lucius pulled a small vial from his robes.

'Of course you do,' said Voldemort, snatching the vial from Lucius's trembling fingers, 'or you would not have dared come here.' He turned and strode over to a table in the corner of the room. A small potions lab was set up on top. 'Very wisely so, I might add.' He sat down.

Silence descended.

Lucius remained standing. For a very long time.


	2. Lost and Found

**2. Lost and Found**
    
    January 5, 2003
    It began as rather an odd story that no one quite believed in – a quirky
    tale of dubious origin. The kind of thing they usually assign to me.
    (Sometimes I think they see me as a quirky oddity, out of place at the
    Prophet, and they try to find stories that fit me. Do they expect me to
    thank them, I wonder?)
    A Dementor had gone missing – or, as the story stood when they dumped it
    on me, had allegedly disappeared from Azkaban prison. This, I quickly found
    out, was alleged by an inmate. He did use that exact wording when I
    interviewed him (breaking into Azkaban, I learnt, was only marginally easier
    than breaking out of that hell-hole – Lucius Malfoy and Sirius Black were at
    least spared the paperwork). 'I allege,' he said, 'that one of 'em 'as gone
    jawohl!'
    And there went my story, and half my pay check, being part freelance
    still. But, as always, I stuck to it. There was little else to do but sip
    vile coffee at the Prophet and fail to speak to everyone.
    My source (while The story might have been gone, I hoped - as always - to
    find A story somewhere in the wreckage of the first) was, they told me, the
    oldest resident of the Azkaban facility. No one knew what he had been
    convicted of. No one knew how long he had been there. Some speculated wildly
    that he had been there since before the actual prison complex was built.
    They called him the First One and he was both a mascot and a curse.
    He claimed he had grown immune to the Dementors. He certainly appeared
    happy (one of my first notes was: 'personnel v. disturbed by inmate's
    blatant happiness'). If the other prisoners hadn't been so far gone, they
    might have looked to him as an inspiration, proof that there was, at least,
    a merrier kind of madness.
    I never did ask him if he knew Black.
    'I can hear them whisper in our mind,' he said. At the time, I thought he'd
    taken to talking about himself in the plural - a kingly madness. How wrong
    I was.
    He said one of them was fading, going mad. One of the Dementors, he
    claimed, was dying. I asked him where it was, why no one else had noticed,
    why no one even knew it was missing. He told me the 'human folk' no longer
    kept track of Dementors unless they became a bother, that they could come
    and go as they wished so long as they 'didn't make no fuss.' A quick dig
    through our archives seemed to me to verify this claim. It was only when the
    Dementors were angry, when they 'made a fuss,' that the story of their
    Azkaban absence hit the headlines. There was not a single small notice, only
    headlines.
    It was when I widened my research that I caught the scent of a story
    again, when I realised that what we had all been taught about Dementors,
    through school and media, were mostly a bunch of canonized theories. No one
    even knew where they had come from. No one seemed to think it worth mention
    these days that they were (so the older reports claimed) immortal.
    I went back to interview the First One (he never gave me any other name)
    several times, despite the depression the visits brought me. One time, he
    stopped his prattling to regard me, almost solemnly, for a long, worrying
    moment. 'It's them,' he said, and his voice terrified me because it was not
    the one I had come to know and loath, but the deeper, wiser, articulated
    tone of a man to whom madness is merely an entertaining pastime. 'It's them,
    ' he said. 'Not even the solid rock can shield you from them now. This room
    used to be much too far away for visitors to feel even the slightest whiff
    of our hellish world. But they are afraid, my dear. They call out. One of
    theirs has never faded before and they fear that something worse will happen
    next. The unknown scares them. They are single-minded creatures, animals
    with an insatiable thirst but innocent as children. They have never known
    death, nor feared it, for they have never been alive. This terror awakens
    something in them. Life.' His eyes as they stared into mine were beyond my
    simple powers of description and I wanted to flee but couldn't move a
    muscle. To this day, I feel I wouldn't have remembered a word he said if he
    hadn't inscribed them on my very mind. (And let me tell you, it hurt like
    hell.)
    The very last thing he told me was this: 'They are afraid that they will
    come alive and devour themselves.' Then his stare shifted, he cackled
    insanely, and shrieked: 'Well, aren't I jus' th'patron o' th'place, m'dear?
    Patron, I! Patron, us! Paterfamilias! Paternoster! Paternal otter! Eek, eek,
    eek!'
    And then I knew I had a story; a difficult, dangerous one, but definitely
    a story.
    That was when the news broke about the other story, the one I would
    eventually be the only one left to cover.
    The only one left alive.
    


	3. Fortified

**3. Fortified**

**_16 June 2001  
Harry scowled when I told him I'd been out sampling the men of Redlace Street. I've an idiot boyfriend. What else is new?   
  
  
18 June 2001  
Body v. good. Harry's better. Am disgruntled by this. Though am feeling should not be. As usual, life with boyfriend v. confusing.  
Should probably never have bought that Fielding book. Am feeling embarrassingly girly.  
Still, Harry loves me.  
!!  
  
  
12 October 2001  
I still remember the day when Harry told me I had a stony heart. As clearly as if it was only yesterday. And I'll never forget the day he told me I had great walls of stone around a soft heart.  
'You have so many walls, I feel as if I get lost in a maze whenever I try to reach you,' he huffed, face the colour of beetroot, as usual.  
I was in quite an agitated state myself. I'd rather I had a heart of stone. You can chip away at solid stone for a long time without breaking it, but walls of stone can crumble, and expose your innermost secrets. And fears.  
I'd let him see me naked but he wanted more, much more. Total exposure. I told him my skin was too sensitive for that, but he didn't even seem to notice the jest. Harry can be very intent. Very distracting.  
'Well,' I said, 'I hope you brought a ball of yarn, or marked the corners with paint, because you might as well leave.' That was my answer, or some ramble very much like it.  
Harry didn't leave. Nor did he tear down my walls, but he found his way inside. And I loved him for it. And I still do. O, but I do.  
And now my walls keep both of us safe. Real walls of cunning, ingenuity, opaque transparency, magic, and solid stone. I'll never forget Harry's face when I explained it all to him, at last. That it should take all of that for him to realise that his boyfriend is brilliant as well as dead sexy is quite beyond me.  
He is safe here. My heart is safe.  
My precious, oh-so-honest Gryffindor heart.  
Father would throttle me with ungloved hands, I'm sure.  
  
  
Harry thinks I should write a novel.   
I, of course, turn up my nose at him and snort at such plebeian notions. I have money. I have a home. And I have Harry.  
Need I have more?  
  
  
16 May 2002  
Have fortified myself with drink. The idiom obviously has little bearing on reality.  
Harry still not home.   
  
  
17 May 2002  
blood everywhere. dark ugly dishonest death has a curious smell  
my voice is gone think the same is true of my throat  
that explains part of the smell in any case  
why do I [bloodstain]  
I am a dead man writing  
my dishonest heart is gone [impossible to transcribe]_**


	4. Hello, Miss Marple

**4. Hello, Miss Marple**
    
     The news of Harry Potter's prolonged absence from his work as Auror and
    his position as Muggle Liaison Officer made for big headlines and a sudden
    interest in my odd and obscure little story of the Missing Dementor. In the
    absence of any real news concerning the disappearance of the Boy Who Lived,
    both readers and my colleagues seized upon anything that could possibly be
    said to have even the slightest connection to the Potter story. And everyone
    knew of Potter's history with Dementors; his strong reactions to their power
    when just a child at Hogwarts, his now famous Patronus that had graced every
    front-page from here to Timbuktu, and, of course, the connection between his
    infamous adversary (that my conservative editor still insists must not be
    named) and the Dementors. In short, my story got interesting by association,
    got a sprinkling of Boy Who Lived stardust, got pulled from a late notice to
    an early full-blown article.
    So now I faced another problem: creatively filling that big empty space
    the layouter wanted to devote to 'Potter and Dementor related material'. I
    was forced to dig up any obscure bit of Dementor lore I could possibly
    locate, figure out at least ten different ways to express the same basic
    fact over four allegedly different pieces ('M'dear, 's called journalism,'
    my editor leered at me), wallow in conjecture, and make at least three
    arbitrary mentions of Harry Potter in every article I wrote (if I didn't, my
    editor cut and pasted some of my previous mentions wherever they didn't fit;
    no one but I seemed to notice in any case).
    Gradually, and with ample assistance from my commercialist editor, my
    stories on Dementor activity morphed into wild, vaguely gothic speculations
    about Dementors attacking and abducting Harry Potter; stories that had quite
    a few of our readers inquiring as to why the Prophet had started publishing
    fiction all of a sudden. And at the very same time, I morphed back into the
    drunkard I had thought so firmly behind me. People were sniggering behind my
    back. Still, I couldn't drop the story. It was my first big one and I needed
    both the money and the goodwill of my, in those days, ever-present editor.
    After two weeks of writing speculative horror stories, I stopped sleeping
    in my search for some new angle, some real and unimagined connection to the
    Potter story. As I look back on those sleepless nights, what I see is a
    woman lost in a drunken dream, a nightmare of my own making, trying
    desperately to regain some sort of hold on reality, trying to find something
    real amongst all the rumours and borderline lies. It quite surprised me (as
    much as anything could in my drunken stupor) that I found my breakthrough by
    delving even deeper into the fictitious.
    Having stared at an unhelpful wall for I don't know how many hours, I
    picked up a crime novel (Walters, I believe) and read it in one sobering
    sitting. When I resumed work on my story, it was with the clear intent of
    solving the case of the missing Dementor. It had suddenly become clear to me
    that the reason I had so little to write about was that the case wasn't even
    acknowledged as a case by the Aurors and therefore no progress could be
    made. Spurred by the fictive success of the novel's heroine, I set out to
    find myself a missing Dementor.
    Yes, I really felt that way. Like a struggling heroine.
    I was, after all, quite drunk.
    


	5. Words, Words, Words, Something Wicked th...

**5. Words, Words, Words, Something Wicked this Way Comes**

The sounds of potion-making seemed loud but distant – clear arrows of noise pecking at a mind muffled by fear. Lucius kept his balance on a floor that was at once his own yet foreign, still as the stone beneath the rich carpeting yet rattling his legs as an unsettled heap of his ancestor's bones. Perhaps even a ghostly image of his own whitened bones could be glimpsed through the carpet's complex patterns, coiling before his fear-addled eyes.

Determined to avoid his morbid reflection on the floor, Lucius let his gaze sweep the room, back and forth, back and forth. He stood perfectly still save for the swivelling of his head, like a sentinel keeping the silence at bay by giving it the very coldest of Malfoy stares.

Looking at those walls, his own that now seemed so alien to him, Lucius found himself wondering if perhaps they marked the end of the world, a thin shield against a nothingness that had consumed all else. It seemed to him that the room existed now in a vacuum, adrift in limbo. Not a sound was heard, the subtle presence of the world around him became clear to him now only by its omission. To his mind, there existed only the room, and the strange presence haunting it, freezing his limbs and agitating his heart.

'Lucius!' exclaimed Voldemort. 'How, exactly, did you come by this sample?'

Lucius startled out of his frozen vigilance and turned an apologetic face towards his master's scaly back. 'My lord?'

Voldemort did not turn away from the metallic liquid rippling softly in the small stone basin before him. 'The sample, Lucius! How did you acquire it?'

'I assure you, my lord,' faltered Lucius, 'it's – it is what I have said it is. Surely, it is enough that you have a gentleman's word—'

'NO, it is NOT!' roared Voldemort. 'That would imply trust, and trust is a weakness I do not allow myself. You should know this, Malfoy. Now, tell me exactly what you did to get the sample.' His voice was measured and cool. It was a voice his followers either learned to obey the first time they heard it or not at all.

And so, Lucius told his lord, told him all but the most intimate of details. 

In the hearth, the fire fought a losing battle against a harsh, cold wind.

The room had no windows.

  
  



	6. Dementor

**6. Dementor**

**_De'ment_**_: To deprive of reason; to make mad. Derived from the Latin _dementare_. Also _dementate_ (n. _dementation_). Forms the root of _Dementor_, one who dements._   
- F&B Wizarding Dictionary_, 1986 ed._

_**Dementor**. A creature that sucks the happiness out of anyone in its close vicinity. Employed at Azkaban prison for its ability to dampen or, in extreme cases, completely obliterate the magic of wizards and witches subjected to its influence._   
- Encyclopedia Magica_, De-Dr, 1972 ed._

_Of all the monsters outlined in this book, the Dementor is perhaps the most unforgivably evil. Its one defining motivation, its sole reason for existing, is to prey on the happiness of others, to create discord and fear and feed on the filthiest of emotions: hate and mindless fear. In extinguishing every last spark of hope, the Dementor turns its victim into a state beyond mere life or death; a state of existence so pitiful that even the cruellest of physical torture would be less demeaning._  
_The further the victim sinks into this state of anti-life, the weaker its magic will become and it will lose the very last hope for survival: the Patronus charm. Having thus debilitated its victim, the Dementor devours the final ragged remnants of that lost soul and leaves behind an empty shell, a demented body that cares not for survival and wastes away in the most degrading way conceivable._  
_Still, it cannot be said that the Dementor takes any perverse joy in these killing kisses. Its very coldness, its inability to feel any sort of compassion, its very repulsion of all the finer emotions is what makes the Dementor perhaps the foulest creature ever to walk the earth._  
- _Frederick Fallswipe, _Musings on the Monster_, 1912_

_The Empty Ones rose from the dirt  
To topple Evil from his throne,  
But not to battle, maim or hurt:  
They sucked the souls from flesh and bone;  
They spread the Emptiness around  
And then returned to the ground.  
  
A man came wand'ring from the woods,  
As empty as a hollow tree  
His back still bore the stolen goods,  
They'd hearkened to the peasants' plea;  
They spread the Emptiness around  
And then returned to the ground.  
  
The Empty Ones came into town  
To from its folk their payment wring.  
They cast the gold into a crown  
To put upon their shining King;  
They spread the Emptiness around  
Without returning to the ground.  
  
The Empty Ones did rule the land;  
For many years their threat'ning Kiss  
Did make the scoundrel stay his hand  
For fear of that most foul abyss;  
They rose to form a force renowned  
And then returned to the ground._  


- _from the Song of the Empty Ones, modern text, from an incomplete thirteenth century manuscript_

  
  



	7. Connection

**7. Connection**
    
    
    It might have been all the repeated mentions of Potter's magnificent
    Patronus that first sparked the idea in my overworked mind. Anyone with half
    a brain could see that there was a connection between the Patronuses and the
    Dementors – but no one had wondered (as far as I could tell) what that
    connection really was. After all, Muggles don't stop their morning
    procedures to contemplate how the toilet or the faucet work, nor do Witches
    and Wizards in general worry about how spells and charms operate – it is
    simply enough that they do.
    Hence, my editor looked two steps away from pulling me off the story when
    I came in muttering about trying to find out how Patroni work. He wondered –
    weighing his words between earnestness and sarcasm – if I had missed the
    Hogwarts class when Expecto Patronum was discussed. 'Patroni are the
    embodiment of their casters' positive thoughts,' he told me, quite possibly
    reciting old Flitwick's lecture verbatim. If I didn't believe him, I could
    check the library - 'it's called research.'
    Though too tired to argue coherently, I asked him why those happy
    thoughts would attack the Dementors and why the latter would flee before the
    former. Before he fled from my unfocused, staring eyes and convoluted
    reasoning, my editor told me that if I wanted to know why Dementors feared
    embodied Happy Thoughts, I should either go interview a Dementor or drop the
    story.
    I did neither, of course. But I did go to the library, and I did
    interview, once again, the closest thing I could find to a companionable
    Dementor, though the First One would undoubtedly resent the comparison. My
    agitated mind simply refused to accept what was, I thought, a wishy-washy
    explanation of a spell that might provide an invaluable clue to solving the
    mystery of the Dementors.
    At first, I thought I would get nothing but tedious repetition from the
    First One. The Dementors fear life, he said. They fear being infected by it.
    It was only after the interview, alone in the Pergamentus Library that the
    First One's prattling came to make sense.
    Ancient scrolls talk of the Empty Ones. Dementor was a term coined in
    1616 by Akil Attenville, a witchdoctor criticising the use of the beings as
    guardians of the newly established Azkaban prison. He argued that a person's
    sanity and soul should never be stolen in such a demeaning way, no matter
    the crime committed. Attenville meant that these Dementors reflected the
    demented attitude of a society gone mad. The Empty Ones dehumanised their
    creators and where we once had used mentors to guide people onto a better
    path, we now provided de-mentors to destroy a damage already done.
    His arguments never quite gripped the conscience of the Prophet's readers
    back when his heated articles were published, largely due to his own
    highbrow rhetoric. I spent hours deciphering and summarising them for my
    first substantial piece in weeks. When my editor saw it, he nearly choked on
    the thick scent of controversy. But he published. And the debate was
    re-awoken, reaching heights that its long-dead originator could have only
    dreamed of.
    


	8. Betrayal

**8. Betrayal**

****

10 August 2001

Harry dragged me up for a rooftop breakfast today. And he had the nerve to suggest my 'whining' was because I needed beauty sleep. Me!! Pfft!

Bloody stairs. Was v. tired and tried to Disapparate. Harry laughed at me the rest of the way.

I laughed at myself, a bit. Never did that before Harry. He's breaking down my walls, he says. I say he's pulling me down to his level, lamentably plebeian as it is.  
And if he's so down to earth, why does he insist on dragging me up, up, up to see a bloody sunrise? Why, oh why??

And then to point out that it's red and gold! As if the whole affair didn't have Gryffindor painted all over it already. It's really much easier to stagger into dungeons when you're half-asleep. He called me a grumpy mole. Note to self: Am so going to punish him for that. Slowly. With much tunnelling.

2nd note to self: Never, ever, never let this journal fall into enemy hands. And remember: The World is thine enemy!

Still, breakfast was good, once the stairs stopped attacking me.

And if any walls are crumbling, they did so before that sunrise. Had Harry not held on tight, I fear I might have burst, essence of Draco floating away in the late summer morning breeze. Now, my heart fluttered at his breath against my cheek.

I think that Gryffindor put crack in my tea. Honestly.

* * *

24 November 2001

I had a comfort blanket when I was six. A red and gold one. O, irony.

I used it to strangle house elves (just short of killing them, expensive as they are), to whip garden gnomes (the few straggling survivors), to dry any stray tears and to muffle my sobs cries of rage.

Temper should be tempered. So papa says. And papa is always right.

I had a bully's comfort blanket at Hogwarts: bullying. As simple as that. Though, with Harry, it turned complicated. He turned into my comfort blanket.

But he's not here. And that is my comfort blanket in this lonely, poorly made piece of bed-like furniture: that he's safe. Harry's safety is my greatest comfort. And the fact that I'm the one keeping him safe? Well, I'm doing something right for once.

Papa is not always right.

Bastard.

* * *

12 December 2001

Harry's skin seems eager to corroborate the metaphor when I call him my Heart. Such a silly shade of red. So very like a Gryffindor.

When I add Honest, he gets the doubtful look in his eye of someone who feels not up to the task.

As if.

Harry, my Honest Heart,

May we never be apart.

(I need to get my own stash of tealeaves. Really.)

* * *

3 May 2002

Boyfriend planning surprise visit. Doesn't realise I am omniscient. And omnipotent. No need for any potency pills here.

Bring on the boyfriend.

* * *

5 May 2002

Found Harry in bed with another man. Some blond bimbo.

Need to scream.

Where's my blanket?!!

((random scribbles))

* * *

13 May 2002

Some Muggle misfit knocked on the door and asked for Harry. Laughed when he realised I'm 'the boyfriend'. Laughed in my face. Tried to knock him out. Didn't work. Not much for menial labour, me.

The façade brings no comfort now. Like my walls, it crumpled. I cried when he left.

When, at long last, that bastard left. He took great pleasure in recounting his every encounter, every moan and exclamation from my boyfriend's lips. Every pet name I thought was mine to keep and cherish.

My comfort blanket is gone. I scream into empty darkness.

* * *

16 May 2002

Have fortified myself with drink. The idiot idiom obviously has little bearing on reality.

Harry still not home.


	9. Defence Against the Dark D's

**(NB: This section should be in Courier font but as the abomination that is ff net has made formatting stories a matter of knocking one's metaphorical head into one hideously ugly brick wall, this is not so. Since I've begun posting this story here, I will suffer through ff net's upload process until 'tis done, but any future stories will be posted elsewhere, notably at skyehawke net.  
I take no responsibility for any confusion lack of formatting may cause. I can only lament it.)**

**9. Defence Against the Dark D's**

I took a self-defence course. Times had been publicly acknowledged as bad for quite some time at that point and such pastimes flourished. Being confined to my flat, the office, and the occasional dull tea party or marginally festive cookery contest I was sent to cover, I had previously shunned such activity. Perhaps I felt unworthy of protection, even from myself.

But I did not attend this course to learn how to protect myself. Quite the opposite. I was well aware that, should I succeed, I was likely to put myself in more danger than ever before. Still, that treacherous road also led to possible success, and the Big Story. Thus, in keeping with the general direction of my research so far, I took a Patronus course.

Long before the reawakened discussion of ethical and moral aspects of the Dementors, the dark creatures had lodged themselves firmly in the public consciousness, not least due to their repeated attacks on the very symbol of Wizarding Goodness, the Boy Who Lived. The Dementors were more tangible monsters than the Death Eaters - and ones you could vanquish with a charm. A charm that worked for any occasion, if you could just learn to perform it.

In fact, specific Patronus courses were, and may still be, far more popular than the more general Defence Against the Dark Arts courses. There was just the one charm to master and one foe to wield it against.

Dementors, unlike Death Eaters, did neither cunning nor subterfuge well. In that, at least, it could not be denied but they were plain-dealing villains. Dementors, unlike Death Eaters, knew of neither shields nor curses. If you mastered the Patronus, you need not worry about being too ignorant to defend yourself; only whether or not your strength would suffice. The Patronus was, in all its simplicity, once mastered, the blunt weapon of the slow masses. 

Dementors, unlike Death Eaters, did not turn out to be your next-door neighbour.

Dementors - dark, ominous, and simple-minded - turned into everyone's favourite monster, a count Dracula to be kept at bay with garlic and wooden stakes while the more earthly landlords leached the land through intangible shrewdness and political machinations. And as it has been throughout all of humanity's times of trial, there were people ready to profit on people's fear, to sell garlic and amulets, to teach the Patronus charm to those who had never grasped or been taught it at school.

And such a man was Henry Witherto, a spell researcher in desperate need of funding for his erratic and eccentric attempts to re-shape common spells and re-create lost ones. I chose his particular course not based on any shining reputation but rather on the gossip that filtered through the other groups I visited. Witherto was rumoured to be absent-minded enough to forget to turn up to his own sessions and ill-tempered enough to publicly chastise students for what he perceived as dull-wittedness. Of aristocratic lineage, Witherto had little patience for the very type of people his courses were aimed at: poorly educated commoners. However, he was also rumoured to be obsessed with the Patronus charm and, by default, the Dementors. In short, just the man I wanted.

Though, I must admit, I did start to doubt myself - more than usual even - after a few sessions with my ill-mannered teacher.


	10. Expecto Patronum

**10. Expecto Patronum**

_The _Patronus Charm_ is used to fend off _Dementors_. Being the spectral embodiment of its caster's happiness, the Patronus repels the Dementors who thrive on misery and despair._

_Proper practice of the Patronus Charm is difficult to achieve since most students fail to put themselves in a suitable state of mind without the actual presence of a Dementor. When Dementors were banned from the Hogwarts grounds, practical study of the Patronus was removed from the Defence Against the Dark Arts course plan. Attempts to use shapeshifters as stand-ins for Dementors have consistently failed to be of any real use._

_— from _Spells & Charms III_, 1976 ed.

* * *

_

_One of the best examples of this is the Patronus Charm. Its incantation, _Expecto Patronum_, is a masterpiece of layered spell-making that channels its wielder's power in the most direct and visible way possible. _Expecto Patronum_ helps its caster will a physical embodiment of his magical power into existence. It creates an autonomous weapon of pure willpower that can home in on its target while its wielder's mind is muddled by the fear that Dementors use to incapacitate their prey._

_Lexically, both halves of the charm carry multiple meanings, all relevant and working together towards the expulsion of the Patronus. The etymological Latin origins of _expecto_ that will resonate most clearly for modern users are the most obvious: _to expect, to look out, (ex specere)_. To produce a Patronus, one must expect it to appear. Since this is inherent in all incantations, it need rarely be addressed within the wording itself. The fact that it is in evidence here proves the failsafe nature of this vital protection charm._

_The second origin of _expecto_ is the one more specific to this particular charm: _to expel from the chest, expectoro_. It is likely the wielder's wand is placed right before his chest when the charm is used and therefore this centring of power in that area is most useful, facilitating the focusing of the power that needs to be expelled. The (inherently flawed) assumption that goodness and happiness resides in the heart (_pectus_) helps the caster concentrate on the positive energy that he needs to produce the Patronus. Such concentration is vital as our only direct channel to the pure and undiluted magic inside us are the very feelings that the Dementors subvert, or attempt to destroy, in order to make our own magic inaccessible to us._

_The part of the spell that deals with what we are to _expect_ is unsurprisingly the one richest in connotations. The root of patronum is, of course, the Latin _patr_, father. The most fundamental reason for this (often overlooked) is that this is a charm that is very much the product of a patriarchal society. The _patr_ is expected to preserve and protect. The fact that the most powerful of gods have often been pictured as great fathers is telling. The father is a symbol of safety, protection, power, and benevolence – precisely the things essential to the creation of a Patronus that knows its purpose._

_The father image inherent to the Patronus Charm has the rarely discussed side effect of affecting the strength of an individual Patronus based on the caster's relation to his father or the image of a father. This would explain the much hyped Potter Patronus, cast as it is by a boy who went from direct father worship to a conflicted turmoil of emotions that are all excellent at counteracting Dementor influence and creating a very powerful Patronus indeed. Rather than being a sign of Potter's great magical powers or prowess, his Patronus is a sign of his substantial psychological father issues. Issues that have thus far served him well._

_Phonetically, the Patronus Charm is a prime example of an expulsion incantation. Heavily aspirated and semi-aspirated _p_'s and _t_'s interact crosswise to phonologically represent the thrusting forth of the father figure that is the Patronus. . . . The consonant sounds of the two stressed syllables together form phtr, a close approximation of the Latin _patr_. . . . The final nm can easily be seen as a shortened form of nam, adding to the sense of reverent foreboding, building the expectation implied in _Expecto

_Considering the amount of guidance and direction inherent in the very wording of this charm, it is a sure sign of the degradation of wizarding kind that so many people these days suffer great problems creating even the faintest wisp of a Patronus. Though considering the lamentable effects of its destructive twin, the Killing Curse, perhaps this too is a blessing, for never has wit been spread so thin over the Wizarding World as today._

_— from _Phonetic Focus and Conductive Connotations, or Why the Will is Mightier than the Quill_ by Henry Witherto, 1999

* * *

_

_To please the spirits of the Empty Woods,  
To fill the fiends that on the merchants fed,  
The Rulers ruled to offer Sacrifice;  
To ease the calling of the Empty Ones,  
To still the waking nightmares they inspired,  
They picked a boy of wit and reason dull  
And bade his brighter brother bring him forth  
Into that deep and dreary Darkened Wood,  
Infested with the fest'ring evil sores  
That ravage souls and leave but withered cores.  
  
Poor were the boys, no ruling could refuse;  
Against their will, without a backward glance,  
They ventured t'wards that vile Forbidden Wood;  
The elder wept, the younger wondered why,  
Then from the dark was heard a ghastly cry.  
  
From every shade, from every beastly bower,  
The damnéd Empty Ones came wailing forth  
And circled round the boys to break their wits.  
In fevered fits they crumpled to the ground,  
Both victims of that vicious, searing sound.  
  
But in the Boy where Wit was loosely tied,  
There dwelt a sleeping, silent, secret Soul;  
Beneath his breast, a shining Knight drew breath  
To thunder forth; Avenge his brother's death.  
  
Of passion, power and the heart of Life  
Composed, beside himself he stood his ground,  
Opposed the Empty fiends with fiery light;  
With strength of spirit, like a Phoenix fought  
Against the damnéd spirits o'the dirt;  
Their foul advance with flame did he divert.  
  
Drew back they did, like Shadows from the Light,  
Like Darkness from the bloom of budding Day,  
And bowed before the One they could not fight,  
Before that Kingly Soul they could not slay.  
  
Thus having won his vict'ry of the Heart,  
He settled slowly on a stronger shape  
And rose with brain and brawn of brother born.  
Then by the Empty Ones an oath was sworn:  
To him or his they would not do a thing;  
From that day on, was he their Shining King._

_— from the Tale of the Shining King, from a seventeenth century manuscript_


	11. Lestrange

**11. Lestrange**

Daily Prophet - 14 July 2002

**LESTRANGE KISSED**

**At 2PM yesterday, Bellatrix Lestrange, confirmed Death Eater, was subjected to the Dementor's Kiss at Azkaban Prison.**

The decision to dement Lestrange was, according to Ministry officials, taken recently and was in part the result of the problems the Azkaban facility has had with its Dementor wardens of late.

"Lestrange escaped once. We couldn't risk her running loose again," said a visibly pressed Charles Umbridge, prison director, at the press conference held after the execution.

Neither Umbridge nor any of the other officials present could provide any clear answer to the question of whether the public should expect imminent breakouts from Azkaban or if Lestrange was deemed particularly prone to escape.

Most known for her cruel torture of Alice and Frank Longbottom, turning the couple into permanent St Mungo's residents, Lestrange has resisted all attempts at classifying her as insane. To the end, she claimed to be of perfectly sound mind.

Her last words are reported to have been: 'In any case, that beast will be served a healthy meal.'

Our source also claims it was Lestrange who initiated the Kiss, taking the Dementor by surprise and nearly curtailing the procedure as the creature drew back in shock.

Lestrange's body will be transported to the Weiste facility for keeping later this week.


	12. The Hunt

**12. The Hunt**

Even when I stayed after class, I was still one of the crowd, just another one of those troublesome people who demanded something in return for the money they donated. I was just another student trying, and repeatedly failing, to leach learning from the esteemed Mr. Henry Witherto. And in Henry's eyes, this also made me an idiot, and thus unworthy of his attention. Only idiots, he seemed to reason, would need Patronus training as grownups, and choose him as their teacher. In his own rude way, Henry was right about more things than one might have liked to admit, for fear of making his ego explode.

It quickly became clear that simple dawdling after class would not suffice. I could have been a potted plant for all the attention he gave me. So, I hemmed and hawked and said, in the tried and tested manner of journalists and students both, that 'it must be fascinating, spell research.' He looked up from his papers, arched an eyebrow and said 'Why?'. When I answered that with some kind of goldfish impersonation (he later told me, and I feel bound to agree), he simply turned back to his papers, and that was that for that evening. I went home and got pissed.

After my third failed attempt at luring information out of Mr Witherto, I went for the direct approach. I told him I was working on a story about the Patronus Charm, had done extensive research, and would like to see whether he could contribute anything I did not already know. It was the direct approach of a burning arrow towards an inflammable ego. His reply was that it always amazed him how people could question the blatantly obvious but take the ridiculous rambling of prophets as undisputable fact.

He then turned back to his papers again, and I thought even that approach - tried and tested on Ministry officials and close-mouthed cookery-contest crones - would fail.

When I was halfway through packing my bag, he began his lecture. I sat on an uncomfortable wooden chair, opposite his desk, all night through. The recounting of his research and latest findings followed no chronology that I could detect, was largely anecdotal, rapid and ruthlessly academic, and would have been almost entirely incomprehensible if I hadn't actually done the extensive research I'd claimed to. I'd read all his published work, plus bits of a manuscript I'd managed to weasel out of his publisher. I could fill in all the gaps, sometimes vocally, and make the required leaps of logic and chronology. The fact that he didn't manage to confuse or deter me elevated me, on the Witherto ranking, from common idiot to vaguely promising, if rather slow, imbecile.

The Dementor's defining trait, he explained, was its lack of life, the absence of the energy that keeps all other creatures sentient and aware. The Patronus, on the other hand, is nothing but life. It's a piece of ourselves that we release from the bounds of our body and mind when both are failing us. But life, though strong, cannot exist (at least not in this world) without a body to contain it. Therefore, it seeks a vessel to fill, and the only bodies not already full of life are Dementors and their demented victims. That is why the Patronus charges towards the nearest Dementor. It is, Henry said, rather like water pouring into a cavity in the ground. There is, he concluded with one of his trademark snorts, nothing nobler about our Patroni than about ourselves. Ergo, nothing noble at all.

That morning, I dreamt of snake-like Patroni slithering and sliding into a large black hole, in the centre of which lay the unconscious, bloody shape of Harry Potter. The following evening, our plan took shape, and one week later, the hunt began.

The idea, birthed by me but brought to maturity by Henry, was that Patroni, being pure energy, work on a level of reality where even distant absences of life (Dementors) would affect them, much as the North and South Poles affect a common compass. We theorized that with every other body in Britain filled with life (or rapidly decomposing, as Henry thoughtfully pointed out), Patroni would detect the missing Dementor and gravitate towards it in some barely noticeable manner. Throughout his many Patronus classes, Henry had observed that Patroni tended to pull north, towards Azkaban Fortress.

The theory was that if one cast a Patronus closer to the missing Dementor than Azkaban, it would be drawn towards the single Dementor instead of his many island relatives. When it hit me that the Dementors of Azkaban were indeed very many and thus likely to exert a greater pull at any given point within the British Isles, I felt very ashamed of my stupid idea and told Henry as much. He snorted at me and told me we were not dealing with something as common as magnetism here. Azkaban was not the North Pole. A Patronus needed no more than one body to sustain itself, and operating on a magical plane quite separate from the noise of nature, it would always seek the shortest route to an Empty vessel.

I'm not quite sure I understand all of his explaining to this day. The important thing, as ever, was that he was right.

So, we chose from the class those with the strongest Patroni: Hetty Amberseed, frightened of her own shadow and quite prepared to launch her weasel Patronus at it repeatedly and vindictively; Bob Willsome, the epitome of laziness who thought it a perfectly splendid idea to have unasked-for energy skip off to do his work for him; John Parsnip, the morbid melancholic who seemed to release an unwanted and frightened Patronus fairy from his listless body rather than actively thrusting anything forth (which he seemed incapable of doing just in general); and Mrs Wilma Winterbottom, your archetypical rotund matron who seemed to practically overflow with energy in all directions of life. A busty, bustling busybody who was of the firm opinion that people in general were terribly bad at managing their lives the way she would have. She had such an excess of energy that her expulsion of the Patronus was rather like a small, overcharged locomotive letting off steam.

We chose these people because of their strong and reliable Patroni, not because of their personalities. It seemed, Henry concluded after our first day, that the peculiar predilection for producing powerful Patroni on demand also brought with it a regrettable predilection for being powerfully peculiar. During the later days of the hunt, I would look back on my alternately chaotic and comatose cookery contest days with something akin to fondness.

Hetty was a suspicious, sniping old hag; Bob kept up a steady stream of complaints whenever he had to move his considerable bulk about; John unerringly found the black storm cloud to every silver lining; and Mrs Winterbottom was completely averse to Apparating even the shortest of distances. This aversion proved a substantial problem, as the plan required a great number of Apparations in quick succession. When Mrs Winterbottom was made aware of this fact, she said she would not have it, she simply would not have it. When her authority in the case of what she would or would not have was put into question, and Henry absolutely insisted she was vital to the success of his plan, Mrs Winterbottom turned into what Henry would later describe as a wobbly, plump pudding of woe (what he would later say behind my back, I really don't want to know). She lamented most earnestly that she could not be of service to such a fine gentleman but she had her principles and one of them was not to get splinched, for what ever would her poor children and grandchildren do without her around to organise their dear little lives? One suspects she had, at some point in her life, rather overdosed on Jane Austen. That, at least, was Henry's theory. Henry was very big on theories.

He was also very keen on getting his own way. He put on a sympathetic face, said 'there there,' and enveloped Mrs Winterbottom in a hug just before he Disapparated, distraught wobbly female in a firm grip. After the third time he performed a similar trick, grabbing Mrs Winterbottom in more and more unlikely places, Mrs Winterbottom took it upon herself to brush up on her Apparating skills and was always one of the first to arrive at a new location, eager to get the hunt over and done with. (This eager Apparating was later employed for visiting family and friends, for which we were undoubtedly cursed by many.)

The idea was to cover as much ground as possible in as short a period of time as could be managed, to cast Patroni at a great number of pre-selected locations in order to compare the results and thus form a map to the missing Dementor. Henry, never one to let prejudice stand in the way of progress, had contacted a colleague at a Muggle university to manage this. The Muggle, Charles Williams, used electronic measuring devices to detect the even the slightest hint of a specific trajectory in the Patroni we cast. He then entered these data into a book-like device called a laptop. Using equations that took into account the presence of other sources of Empty bodies (notably Azkaban prison) the laptop presented likely vectors that grew more and more specific and closer and closer together as the hunt progressed.

While we were all encouraged by these results, the constant Apparating tired all of us. And it didn't exactly help that Henry kept giving impromptu lectures on the mechanics of Apparation. Not even my pathologically inquisitive mind appreciated learning that while Apparation worked on the magical plane where natural nuisances like time and space does not matter, disturbances in the web it cast over our physical world can lead to serious problems. Apparation works by the traveller's forcing the part of this magical web that is connected to his destination to reform his physical form there while disintegrating it at his point of departure. His life energy, the same thing that spawns the Patroni, existing on that same magical plane and tied to this world only through the traveller's body, will momentarily flow into the great web only to pour into the new body at its moment of completion. As time has no meaning in the web, this can be said to take no time at all, and no one has calculated the time it does take on the worldly side of the transport. However, holes in the web do appear, for various unexplained reasons, and if such a hole were to be located between the Apparationer and his destination, the transmission of his body might be jumbled. The results are often so poor that the traveller's life energy won't even bother to attempt leaving the magical plane, merging instead into the web. Then, of course, one also runs the risk of one's life energy being distorted, and subsequent insanity.

I told him to shut up, and was promptly upgraded to opinionated dull-wit in the Witherto rankings. I think that was when he began taking a non-professional interest in my presence. He did stay unusually quiet for the rest of that day. And he stopped flirting with Mrs. Winterbottom, which I think rather disappointed her, to tell the truth. He was, after all, a dashingly handsome and quite brilliant bloody bastard.

Henry's Patronus always stomped around longer than anyone else's. That was, he said, because he knew how to make an effort, and thus, so did the spectral embodiment of his power. And he wasn't even trying to be funny.

When the vectors were through coalescing, everyone's spirits sank yet again. The smallest target area the laptop could produce had a two-kilometre radius and most of that ground was covered in dense forest. What made it worse was that the forest in question was the infamous Forbidden one. The only habitation within the target area was Hogwarts castle and we couldn't very well barge in there and turn the castle inside out to look for a Dementor that would hardly have gone unnoticed. So, the Forest it was.

Hetty acquired some sudden stomach ailment, Bob caught it from her with surprising agility, and John felt rather too at home in the dreary Forest to produce any sort of reliable Patronus. We did manage to convince Mrs Winterbottom to join us in the Forest for a while, but after a deranged Bowtruckle chose to forcibly adopt her as its tree of choice, she left in quite a huff and hurry, vowing never to return.

It looked like the end of the hunt, and we'd scarcely had a sniff of our prey. We'd never be able to do a systematic Patronus search of the Forbidden Forest without getting severely injured, or even killed, in the process. And none of our Patroni could sustain itself long enough to track through the forest and lead us like a bloodhound to the missing Dementor.

We were ready to give up, but then Henry came to think of that third element Charles had taken into account when calculating the position of the lost Dementor. That second source of beckoning Emptiness.


	13. Bodynapped

**13. Bodynapped**

**The Quibbler – 17 July 2002**

**BELLATRIX BODYNAPPED**

_Luna Lovegood, London - _**While being freighted to the waste facility yesterday afternoon, the bereaved body of Bellatrix Black Lestrange was brusquely bodynapped by a Daily Prophet reporter and her cohorts. The Prophet denies any connection and the Aurors claim no such thing has taken place at all.**

Our source, who wishes to remain anonymous, says she herself witnessed both the planning of the deed and the bringing back of Bellatrix's body to an undisclosed location.

'They have the best of intentions, I'm quite sure,' she says, 'but I'm afraid the results may not be what they have expected. I've said as much, but they would not listen.'

She claims the bodynappers intend to revive Bellatrix Black Lestrange through methods she has chosen not to reveal, she says, for fear of what others might do with that information.

It is not the intent of the bodynappers to bring Bellatrix back but rather to use her body for what our source calls scientific purposes. While she can't fault their logic, she fears a repetition of the Frankenstein myth and the escape of a new Bellatrix, more dangerous than ever.

Our source would not reveal to us the names of either the reporter or her cohorts but has given this information, and more, to the Aurors in the hope that they might prevent a disaster, should things not go as planned.

_The Quibbler_ will, as always, keep You updated and First In The Know.


	14. A Treacherous Trail

**14. A Treacherous Trail**

It was a beautiful day – high summer – and the small glade was cosier than anything I'd ever imagined I'd find in the Forbidden Forest. Bees hummed and a warm breeze sighed through the high grass. It was enough to turn anyone into a budding poet. Still, the fullness of the swarming forest and the richness of the clear blue sky was counteracted by the ghastly emptiness of the body we had placed at the centre of that peaceful glade. The absence of life in the hooded eyes of Bellatrix Black Lestrange seemed an evil, inverted reflection of the simmering kettle of life wherein we sweated like so many pigs: me, Henry, and the three Aurors who had Apparated onto the scene mere moments after our arrival.

I had to do some very fast talking to keep them from immediately snatching Lestrange from under our noses. I had to convince them that while they were certainly well within their rights to do exactly what we had previously done ('yes, sir, terribly sorry sir'), it would be in their best interest to consider the 'whys' without getting too worked-up about the 'how' ('theft of Ministry property', nasty way to put it).

Ponder, I put it to them, the probability of Potter's absence really being connected to that of the Dementor. Could it not be a case of 'if you find the one, there's the other'? Harry Potter is one big bonus, I suggested. Imagine, I ventured, becoming the new fabulous trio, the one that found and brought back the Boy Who Lived...

I was fairly confident the tactic would work from the moment I first lay eyes on those cocky young males with their shining, prominently placed badges, turning their haughty gazes towards us. The top men are rarely sent on missions that make the front page of the Quibbler but not a single notice in the Prophet. The right person in the right place, like me at the Prophet; I knew that thinking from the inside. And, as is so often the case, the reverse also seems to be true. There was nothing particularly right about those Aurors. Nor anything wrong enough to warrant execution, at least.

During their rather extended moment of indecision, I explained the plan to them, dumbing it down as much as possible. Patroni can track down Dementors. The downside is that they are ephemeral creatures ('short-lived; while there is an awful lot of life, it can't exist on this plane, ehm, well, yes, let's move on'). They seek Dementors out of a desire to inhabit their soulless bodies ('in order to stay, well, here'). Since a Demented person is also, per definition, soulless ('She always was,' offered the slightly podgy Auror self-righteously), they should work just as well. The pure life-force of the Patronus should be able to make a home for itself in Lestrange's body and in that form track down our missing Dementor. Perfectly simple, if it worked.

For such blatantly corrupt men, they were surprisingly reluctant. They raised some valid concerns ('What if it brings Lestrange back to life?', 'When it has a body, why'd it search for another? Waste o' energy, innit?') and would probably have put a stop to the whole thing if Henry hadn't cast his Patronus while we were debating the issue.

There was a sucking noise and Lestrange's body shuddered. She blinked, slowly, several times. Then she smiled, her face radiating innocent incomprehension. It was like looking at a child peering out through the body of a walking corpse. The Aurors backed away as a single entity, which was probably the most coordinated manoeuvre they'd ever managed.

Though I remained where I was, the look on Lestrange's gaunt face made me uncertain of success. She still looked empty, if in a more lively way. But Henry, as always, was utterly confident. He poked the Lestrange-clad Patronus, with his purely cosmetic ornate cane, to attract what could pass for its attention. 'Can you understand me?' he demanded. The body blinked. 'Allow me to rephrase myself,' Henry continued. 'Understand me. Now.' The hint that the Patronus would face a fatal stripping of bodily cover hung in the air like a sword in slowly tearing cobwebs. The body's smile grew. It nodded.

'There is another empty vessel close by. It beckons,' said Henry. 'See it as – insurance.' The meaning of the word could not have been lost even on one who had never heard English in their entire life. Henry was never easily misunderstood when he was in that mood. 'Lead us to it.'

There was another nod and then the Patronus turned and walked into the dense forest. Its pace was slow and we had no problems keeping up, though the walk was certainly more pleasurable for Henry who left it to me to deal with the Aurors' complaints and scepticism. Only once did he support my increasingly desperate arguments. The podgy sceptic had wondered how we could be sure the 'thing' had understood what it was supposed to do. It seemed merely to be taking a wee stroll, he complained with a mixture of impatience and approval. To that, Henry replied that the Patronus was a part of himself, and there were few things he had trouble grasping. The implication that this soundly separated him from the Aurors was impossible to miss and their complaints stilled somewhat after that.

Though I must admit, even I was a bit unsettled by the apparent aimlessness of Lestrange's amblings. She walked in a zigzag pattern. Sometimes she even stopped, often to stoop down and pick something up, sometimes to promptly sit down and play around with what she had previously picked up. Fir cones and ugly little sticks were her preferred building blocks in the forest – flowers, herbs, and grass when we emerged into the blazing hot meadows. Henry recited numerous ingenious reasons for her to get up and keep tracking during these sometimes very long, and very warm, interruptions. It seemed to me like trying to raise a child by handing it an academic dissertation on child rearing. She left when the play was over, never sooner. The Aurors took out their irritation on me, because they wouldn't dare take it out on Henry.

She also had a child's taste for sampling things with her mouth. At one point, this threw Lestrange's body into violent fits that thankfully subsided once she had got some water (from the skinny, permanently parched Auror's water bottle) and had emptied her stomach in the nearest tuft of high grass. There wasn't much to empty out except some acids and a foul smell. After that, she calmed down somewhat and seemed to acquire something of a focus. Her fir cone-clad sceptre, her crown of weeds, and her grass necklace still made our small search party look like something out of Lewis Caroll, with me as the White Rabbit. Oh, dear.

Having Lestrange lead us straight onto the Hogwarts lawn, through its gardens, and up to the castle itself didn't exactly help quell my doubts. Henry merely raised an eyebrow. It shames me to recall that I found his utter composure rather sexy in the vibrating summer heat, where we stood all alone outside the main entrance, due to everyone else's having run off, and in, at the sight of Lestrange, a Demented woman walking.

Her benevolent and befuddled smile was likely the most upsetting thing about her. Albus Dumbledore's similar expression, as he strode out onto the stairs, certainly unsettled me.


	15. Narcissus Revisited

**15. Narcissus Revisited**

**_12 March 2002_**

**_Trust Potter to come up with kinky new use of Polyjuice. Trust Harry to still feel horny after having drunk that vile goo. Trust me to trust him, and get turned on too._**

**_Am so predictable._**

**_Never knew I was so – lithe. Excess fat, my arse. And not even there. Dieting definitely off to-do list. Polyjuice kinkiness should be compulsory for those suffering compulsive eating disorder or similar. Really. Puts things in perspective. Pretty perspective. Narcissus, c'est moi._**

**_Certainly made for unusual sex. We were as focused on exploring our own bodies as we were on exploring our own bodies. Strangely inverted intercourse in an infinite infinity loop. Mental masturbation. Physical and emotional attraction criss-crossing, intersecting, and interacting. Passion squared. _**

**_Queered?_**

**_Am still shaking from the sheer orgasmic shock of it. Dazed but not satiated. Urge to pet hand makes writing difficult, or at least an odd sensation, like so much else tonight._**

**_Harry's coming. Back for more._**

****

**_((manic scrawls))

* * *

_**

**_4 April 2002_**

**_New Polyjuice tastes like juice. An inspired choice. Orange._**

**_Very old juice though, made of stale oranges, but still, less gag-inducing._**

**_Am genius._**

**_Essence of Potter standing by. _**

**_Harry very much standing too._**

**_Yummy._**

**_And I don't mean the bloody potion._**

**_Narcissus, c'est encore moi.

* * *

_**

**_5 June 2002_**

**_Narcissus laughs in my face. Narcissus laughs in his face. Mad laughter from my wretched soul and his wretched mouth. Insanity: no longer a place I'm heading for, but one I've left behind. Masturbation was never so mental as this._**

**_I speak to myself under the willing delusion that I don't. His voice is nearly gone. The writing is all mine. All alone._**

**_Still I talk, and recite all I can remember, every little thing, every detail of his life._**

**_But the charade must stop. People will suspect eventually. I was never as amiable as he._**

**_I try to find his smile but it seems forever lost. Narcissus leers back at me._**

**_I miss him so._**

**_((indecipherable))

* * *

_**

**_6 June 2002_**

**_Bought a boy in Redlace Street. So drugged-out he hardly noticed the Polyjuice. When he looked in the mirror afterwards, he laughed and called me sick. _**

**_I am._**

**_Narcissus laughs in my face and his._**

**_Obliviated the boy before I put him back. Wouldn't want Harry remembered as a narcissistic sex maniac. Even though it wouldn't be far from the truth._**

**_Truth is what we make it._**

**_And the unmaking of the lie._**

**_I lie awake at night. My dishonest heart beats against my chest like a damned soul trying to escape its tomb. And I touch myself and him. Stroking, moaning, clawing, crying, scratching, screaming. Locked inside a lecherous, all-consuming lie._**

**_Narcissus howls at me: Give up, and DIE!_**


	16. Vacant Vision

**16. Vacant Vision**

Rising from an uncomfortable yet expensive armchair over which he had been draped since the end of his forced and indecently filthy tale, Lucius drifted towards the hunched figure of his lord, taking great care not to disturb the latter's concentration. Still, the closer he got, the less it seemed that Voldemort _was_ concentrating. Rather, he was staring into a stone bowl and at a potion displaying all the properties of liquid silver, his eyes wide, jaws quivering.

He had sat like this for some considerable time. Lucius had assumed Voldemort was muttering quiet incantations but his mouth was set in a line so thin it was near invisible on his pocked parchment features.

As if this eerie paralysis were contagious, Lucius came to a dead, half crouching stop, once more locked in the centre of the room. Silence froze in the air, counting seconds and minutes as it fluttered to the restless floor. Lucius waited for a command, a request, an exclamation of incoherent anger that never came.

'Is there – a problem, my lord?' he asked at last.

Voldemort jerked backwards, his chair creaking. He offered no answer but stared as unseeingly at the wall as he had stared at the potion, as perfectly still as a man Petrified by a basilisk stare. Lucius wondered if his lord and master had seen his own reflection in the glittering liquid and if, perhaps, _he_ had found it as paralysing as his followers always had.

When the Dark Lord finally stirred again, turned and rose, one hand clutching the back of his chair, his eyes held none of the basilisk power they once had. Voldemort let go of the chair, took a step forward, and stopped, swaying a little before his head twitched to one side, and he froze again.

Disturbed by this stop-motion display and, even more so, by the slight slackness about his master's jaw, Lucius dared pose his question once again, if only to break the silence. 'Is – something wrong, master?'

The bald head swivelled, eyes focused, ragged remnants of eyebrows rose in unison. 'He's dead,' said Tom Riddle, voice hollow and tinny. There could be no question of whom he spoke, but there seemed no joy in the declaration, no relief, no elation. Only a strange emptiness, a sudden loss of point and purpose.

Face drawn and eyes wide, Lord Voldemort had never looked so much a dead man walking as he did then, lurching out of the room, not even bothering to slam the door behind him, a wretched cold invading the room in his wake.

Lucius shivered. But not from the cold.


	17. Peripatetic Peripeteia

**17. Peripatetic Peripeteia**

Headmaster Dumbledore was as blatantly amused by our insistence that a Dementor was somehow hidden within the castle as he was subtly appalled by our Patronus animation of Lestrange's body. As genial as ever, his long, dark glances towards Lestrange revealed as much of his true feelings as one could ever hope to know. Though, as unsettled as I already was, I'd have preferred being able to take his hospitality and calm presence at crinkly face value.

Thanks to the Aurors, we were allowed to search the castle, under heavy guard and led by Lestrange, whose ambling seemed more purposeful indoors. Now, we were only delayed by the thin Auror's repeated visits to just about every bathroom we passed. He wasn't feeling well. In various ways, none of us were. Except maybe Henry.

We went up and around, curious students scuttling out of our way, until Lestrange walked into an empty room and stopped. Though there was nothing there, it was clear from her stance that she had reached her destination. When Henry asked her where the Dementor was, she just gave him a long, quizzical look. The podgy Auror snorted and reminded Henry, very haughtily, that the latter had asked the Thing to lead us to an empty vessel. Well, the room was empty, wasn'it? Who could say how that Thing defined vessel, anyway?

It struck me that the room was, in fact, curiously empty, but when I asked the Headmaster about it, he replied that it made itself useful, and left it at that. I didn't press the matter. What mattered was the lack of a Dementor at the end of our trail. And the Aurors were not at all happy about that. Muttering threats about legal action, they left in a huff, leading Lestrange hurriedly across the Hogwarts lawns. They were eager to leave (and the thin one eager to heave, it seemed) and knew as well as anyone that they could not Disapparate on the Hogwarts grounds. I was in no hurry to get back to a possible arrest and chose to stay with Henry who had, completely unembarrassed, asked Dumbledore's permission to do some research in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library. And it was among those dusty shelves, with Henry pouring over some ancient tome and me gazing out the open window, that we heard the shrill screams rising up from the garden.

When we arrived at the oak where the Auror's had, apparently, taken a break (for the thin one to retch, no doubt), Dumbledore already stood in its shade, shaking his head sadly. All other witnesses had moved off and turned away, slumping down on the grass, standing still as statues, or emptying their stomachs in the nearby bushes. I, on the other hand, couldn't stop staring, however much I longed to.

The scene was like something out of a gothic horror story, thrust into a flowery pastoral. The podgy Auror lay crumpled on the ground, eyes wide, a tuft of grass clenched in his hand, flies already gathering on the clotting blood that filled his mouth and dyed the grass below him crimson, a large fir cone firmly lodged in his swollen throat. His death had been slow, choking as much on the blood pouring from the gashes torn by the cone as on the cone itself. He had been trying to retch up the alien object while Lestrange had dealt the second Auror a much swifter death.

That the point she had devised to drive her stick into the fir cone's heart would work just as well on a much softer heart, none of us had imagined. It had only been the innocent play of a newborn Patronus. As had her incessant tasting of weeds and flowers.

Or so we thought. The skinny Auror sat with his back against the tree, his face white and drawn, eyes straining out of their sockets. When she had snapped his neck, he had already been half dead, perhaps making a futile attempt to save his colleagues. On his head lay Lestrange's crown of weeds. They were the very same weeds she had tasted, the very same weeds that had made her retch and borrow the Auror's water bottle. Later analyses at the Auror headquarters revealed them to be the ingredients of The Maiden's Poison, a slow-acting, tasteless venom native to Scotland. According to almost forgotten legend, Scottish maidens who wished to get rid of irritating suitors, or prevent nightly rapes, kept the flowers and herbs under their pillows, ready to be chewed and administered to the unwitting bed-partner through a deadly kiss. Though untested, the theory is that the poison is counteracted by female oestrogen to the extent that death could be avoided simply through cleansing one's mouth and retching up any remnants of poison that had slipped into the gastric system.

The Maiden's Poison had also been favoured by female assassins and spies during times of war. It was eventually outlawed – by men, of course – and is now as good as forgotten by the Wizarding world. If it weren't for Henry's being asked to conclusively verify the ingredients of the archaic poison, I would never have known about it. Poisons that anyone with a decent herbal can chew up in a matter of minutes are something the Ministry would rather have stay forgotten. The official story was that Lestrange snapped the Auror's neck, no poison involved.

But the scene was more complex than that. The body of the stabbed Auror had been draped across the poisoned one's legs, its robes stripped off. Using the widened heart-wound as an inkbottle, Lestrange had left a message scrawled across the Auror's ribcage:

"Le Roi mourra, Vive la Reine" – The King will die; long live the Queen.

'Well,' said Henry, 'the lady's got a certain style, at least.'

I murmured half-hearted agreement, but kept to myself the unnerving fact that Lestrange's style seemed to be Henry's. I had, as always, done my research thoroughly. I knew that Lestrange's educational prowess had been erratic at best. And she had never studied French.

That was one of the many things I worried about, sitting alone on a large stone on the outskirts of the Hogwarts gardens, when the expected Howler from the Prophet arrived, sacking me at 40wpm and 100dB. It howled at me what I already knew: My career was as dead as a Demented doornail. I knew I would make headlines the following day, and every day thereafter for quite some time. The Prophet would vilify me as much as it could to salvage its own reputation. I was no longer a quirky oddity but an anti-social, over-ambitious, notorious nutcase who had been kept on the payroll out of pity.

As I sat on that stone, wallowing in the subdued woe I'd perfected over the years, some Muggle hikers appeared at the main gates, gazing up at the castle, pointing and chatting. I waved a despondent greeting – I even ventured a smile – but though I was straight in their line of vision, they looked right through me, as if I was nothing but an empty patch of air. Just as the Howler had told me: I was Nothing. I lay back, closed my eyes, and suffered a painful sunburn the following day, plodding through Henry's family estate in my nightgown. He had offered me room, in his bed. The house was out of paparazzi reach, and I probably wouldn't be able to afford my flat in any case.

My life, for what little it had been worth, was over. I felt as empty as Lestrange no longer was, thanks to me, and no matter how much I ate, I never felt any fuller.

Then, when I would have grabbed any second-hand chance, the phone rang, and I squelched out a hurried Yes.


	18. Lappertapper

**18. Lappertapper**

_There are creatures known to witches and wizards, written about in works on magical beasts, sold in the quaint shops of Diagon Alley and its darker sibling, that can be thought of as magical only by association with this hidden world that Muggles know so little about. While they are used in intricate magic or occult rituals, the creatures themselves are merely unusual, lacking any innate magic. They are listed in magical texts but have thus far eluded the thorough cataloguing of Muggle biologists. It has been said that any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from magic. The same could be said for these queer creatures, known only to such a very small subsection of humanity._

_One such creature is the Lappertapper. Miniscule enough to remain invisible to any eye that does not seek its presence, the Lappertapper exists only in colonies of thousands, each of them working as a synaptic node so that the colony can function as one creature._

_Parasitic by nature, these weird creatures invade the oral cavity of their host. They prefer placement on the tongue, but once it is claimed, they will spread beyond its borders, sticking to any soft surface available._

_Once established inside a host, the Lappertappers tap energy from the host's food, sucking vitamins, minerals, fat, and even magic from any organic material coming into contact with them. There are variants that tap till the food loses all its nourishing power but these are aberrations. Such mutations never survive to increase their numbers since their hosts die much too quickly. The common Lappertapper, however, weakens its host over a long period of time, thus having ample chances to migrate to a new host – during a failed act of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation if not sooner._

_Lappertappers are only – illegally – sold in Knockturn Alley._

_—from _Essays on the Dark Side_ by Charles Wist, 1987_


	19. Pickup

**19. Pick-up**

_Lappertappers are only – illegally – sold in Knockturn Alley._

This, of course, posed no problem to Lucius Malfoy, striding into _Queer, Questionable, and Quality Creatures_ one late evening in late April, 2002, to pick up a special delivery, their very strongest breed. For even though overly aggressive Lappertappers fail to meet Darwin's evolutionary requirements, they keep appearing – a common enough mutation – and they bring an exceptionally high price when bought en masse.

Of course, like the shadiness of Knockturn Alley, money posed no problem to Lucius Malfoy. Especially not as the owner of _Creatures_ was dead twenty seconds after his greedy fingers had closed around the poisoned Galleons.


	20. The Diary

**20. The Diary**

At first, I felt as though I had come full circle, as though I was back where I started, back at square one. But I quickly realised, between two cups of ageing caffeine, that this was not the case. It was worse. My life had reached an all-time low, plunging deeper than I'd ever thought possible. I had missed square one, veered inwards and downwards. My life, instead of completing some demented circle of life, was still spiralling as much out of control as it had been when I was unemployed and shuffling through Henry's house in my nightgown.

I was back at the Quibbler, but my boss was my oldest friend's daughter. My deadest, oldest friend. (You really can't get deader than being blown to a million or so pieces by your own stupid experiment.)

I had no friends left and was employed by my dead best friend's daughter (as ditzy as her mother once was). To this day, I don't know whether she hired me out of pity or because the Prophet had fired me for writing (and I quote my editor) 'Quibbler-worthy, crazy fantasies.'

So, I sat like a dried-up old plant in a dark corner of the Quibbler office, feasting on coffee and dubious facts. I had a never ending stream of questionable news washing over me from the smoky mouth of one of our semi-resident freelancers, Miss Inga Northshore. Her speciality was gossip, any kind, anywhere, and her range was astounding; she related elaborate conspiracy theories and who the waitress on the corner was dating with the very same high-pitched tremor, the same glowing eyes, and the same bluntly pointed coughs and splutters. She favoured my desk not because I was particularly receptive but because I was almost always there and almost never doing anything much. I suspect at those few times the office was empty when Inga came to visit, she engaged the potted plants in conversation. Usually she got about as much of a response from me as from the equally withered old plants.

But, purely by chance, I found a golden piece of truth in Inga's stream of fiction. It was from her that I learnt about the rumours that Harry Potter had been dating none other than Draco Malfoy, his old school rival. Had I been a reader of the less reputable witch magazines, I would have learnt about it many months before. As it was, the notion at first startled me and made me laugh in the midst of my misery. And my interest in the affair would have ended there if Inga hadn't continued her observation by saying it was a damn shame young Malfoy had gone missing. Apparently, the lanky young blond had been much to Inga's liking, so much so that she had often camped out with various paparazzi as they lay in wait outside his London home, hoping to catch sight of Harry Potter.

But now, he was gone. No one had seen him since a week before Harry Potter had been reported missing. Gossips were quick to make a connection but no reputable media would even deign to speculate. It was unthinkable that the Boy Who Lived could have had an affair with Lucius Malfoy's son, or that he could have somehow eloped with him.

My own prejudice against the very media subculture that had once given birth to my journalistic career had blinded me to these facts as I tied my Dementor story to the Potter case. But now, fallen from Prophet grace, I was back in the seedy undergrowth of journalism. And I had found the missing clue lying there, discarded. Or at least the trail that would lead me to it.

I sought out Malfoy's landlady. He had paid his flat well in advance. If it stood disused, that was none of her concern. She would by no means let me in. Young master Malfoy had been most specific.

Had I still been working for the Prophet, it would have seemed an insurmountable problem. But now, having stolen a Demented Bellatrix Lestrange (for which I was not thrown into prison for the sole reason that the Prophet wanted to hush it all down and hired an excellent lawyer) and having but scraps of a career left, it merely delayed me a single day. That same night, I went to Malfoy's flat with an old lock-picking acquaintance of mine. Inside, I found the first diary.


	21. Being Muggle

21. Being Muggle

24 April 2001

I want to keep him safe. I want so desperately to keep him safe. I need to keep him safe. To keep myself safe, my sanity intact.

He's like an incurable disease, that kills only when removed. How did I ever grow so dependent on someone?

And how utterly idiotic it was to grow so attached to the most hunted wizard alive. Potter's little friends may think that the most hunted is Voldemort, but I know better. I know Death Eaters. All too well. The Dark Lord (I've only recently realised how stupid that sounds) is merely chased by Aurors. They're much to good to be proper hunters. The very fact that they're moral and righteous makes them unable to hunt with the ferocity of Death Eaters.

Harry is hunted. Harry is prey.

I must find a way to protect him.

* * *

5 May 2001

Harry found my undercover suggestion humorous. Said we spend quite a lot of time undercover as it is. Though he didn't issue any complaints.

It went from a joke to an argument. Not for the first time.

Harry argued his case very convincingly. Said it's no use going undercover. He'd have to go under skin - someone else's - to escape detection. And Polyjuice is nasty and not very long-lasting.

We both left the room in a huff. Not for the first time.

But it gave me an idea, and a runny nose from all these dusty old books.

But the answer must be here. Somewhere.

Harry is back to distracting me. Definitely not for the first time.

No complaints here. The books aren't going anywhere.

Though they might decompose.

* * *

12 June 2001

I was right! I was RIGHT!

What better place to hide Harry from the entire wizarding world?

Am genius! This time, boyfriend must agree or boyfriend will have to look for fun elsewhere.

GENIUS!

Must allow boyfriend to bask in self's glory.

* * *

16 June 2001

Harry scowled when I told him I'd been out sampling the men of Redlace Street. I've an idiot boyfriend. What else is new?

* * *

17 June 2001

The conservation vials seem to be working and the Polyjuice hasn't lost its sting. Excellent.

Harry has day off tomorrow. Will test Muggle essence then. Should probably feel v. disgusted by this. However, am only feeling mildly queasy. Must be the fumes.

I need a house elf!

Ergo, I need Harry.

* * *

18 June 2001

Body v. good. Harry's better. Am disgruntled by this. Though am feeling should not be. As usual, life with boyfriend v. confusing.

Should probably never have bought that Fielding book. Am feeling embarrassingly girly.

Still, Harry loves me.

* * *

20 June 2001

The old place looks rather depressing like this. No wonder it's no big hit in the Muggle tourism game. Still, I may conceivably have sat in the lap of some uncouth Muggle hiker. Am both utterly appalled and slightly aroused by this idea. Boyfriend keeps telling me I'm weird. I say he's projecting.

The Great Hall sans enchanted ceiling is rather gloomy and oppressive. Not good for candlelit dinners for two. Luckily some of the smaller chambers could be made rather cosy. Will employ house elf Harry for any all manual labour.

Dust! Dust everywhere! And No Magic! Am on the verge of admitting to crappy idea.

Still, Harry seems pleased. Says it's like camping out, inside. Worryingly, he says this with mildly insane grin on his face.

Have shocked boyfriend into insanity. V. bad.

* * *

29 March 2002

Polyjuice. Sounds like pleasantly tropical flavour with fat parrot on label.

Tastes like squashed fat parrot.

Must rectify.

* * *

9 June 2002

One bottle is missing. I've counted them ten times over at least.

I knew I'd seen that face before. Can't be a coincidence.

Who was he? Why would he put on another face?

Have I been deceived?

Was Harry?

If I were -

Slytherins do revenge well.

Very well.

* * *

11 June 2002

I grow confused. Gobble keeps out of my way, skulking in the shadow.

Does he grow deceitful?

Does he fear? When we are both gone, will he vanish? Or have I already won . . . and lost? When there is no winner, is the duel done?

Did it ever end?

He fears that it did not. And that that is the only reason he is still here.

He fears.

I am past fear.

But I am not past vengeance.


	22. Ruins

**22. Ruins**

My idea was sufficiently odd to get Henry excited and consequently put all other projects on hold in favour of producing an adequate supply of Polyjuice. I ventured into the seedier parts of London to get Muggle samples.

It was Malfoy's cryptic diary entries in combination with my previous visit to Hogwarts that had put me on the right track. The Muggles at the gate had seemed to look right through me. Why? They had left looking mildly disappointed. Why? Wouldn't Hogwarts, its beautifully preserved medieval architecture and pleasant gardens, be a tourist's dream come true? Were they trekking through Scotland in search of Hollywood mansions?

And, most importantly, how come they were there at all? Shouldn't they have been somehow redirected by the wards protecting the school, one of the wizarding world's biggest and best kept secrets? Wasn't it, after all, unplottable?

My mind having filed this topic under Not News-Worthy, I would never have investigated it further if not for Malfoy's description of the hideout he had found for his celebrity boyfriend. Mentions of a Great Hall, curiously unmoving staircases, dungeons, and the biting Scottish winds all pointed in one direction: Hogwarts. But not as I knew it. Malfoy described a derelict castle, dust-filled and gloomy; not a school teeming with teachers and pupils.

It was surprisingly easy to find the answer. Only in revised editions of Hogwarts: A History was there no mention of the peculiar properties of Hogwarts castle. Only when a conflict with the Muggles had seemed imminent had it been decided that the duality of the castle was better kept as secret as possible. After all, should anyone decide to blow up the derelict old castle in the Muggle realm, its magical counterpart might crumble as well. No one quite knew, and it was better to be safe than sorry.

And it was reasonably easy to keep this particular secret covered up. Only Muggles with no magical abilities could see or enter the Muggle version of the Hogwarts grounds. And the castle, dark and foreboding, was not likely to attract any great floods of tourists, especially not given all the warning signs and the fact that this was very much private, partially fenced-in, property.

But should Muggles pass through the crumbling walls, they would enter only the Muggle grounds, never coming in contact with the magical realm. However, Muggleborns occasionally experienced a faint vision of the Muggle castle superimposed on the school, which explained why some of them found it rather more dreary and daunting than others did.

And I must admit, I found more than the howling winds chilling as we pushed through the squealing gates and approached the castle one afternoon in late September. Even as a first year student I had never felt the castle loom as much as it did that day, dark and foreboding. Ivy crawled across everything, as if to devour it whole. Inside, everything was dusty. The front doors and part of the hallway was cleaner than what could be seen in the grimily lit Great Hall.

Except for the dried, blackened pool of blood at the foot of the stairs.


	23. Deception

**23. Deception**

The memory was as vivid as a flash of neon lightning. Sight, smell, touch, trembles; it all came back to him in a rush of sensation.

In the shadows of the bedchamber, Potter's hair had been a ruffled raven, a ragged black tuft in a marsh of sweaty sheets, the wild mane of a mischievous sprite, the unruly locks of a boy who lived, voraciously. And his moans had been nothing like the shrill, irritating lament for his lost mother, all those many years ago.

Even in the darkness, shining emeralds lurked inside those eyes. Potter's now chiselled features tasted of secreted, sticky salt and he was, as they said, hard as the proverbial rock. But oh so pliable, so very lithe and agile, wrapping his legs around Lucius's waist, arching like a fleeing larva at every fervent touch.

Though younger in years, if not in flesh, Harry Potter had proved surprisingly dominant in bed. Still, he stayed a true and noble Gryffindor at the core, matched his conduct with his fair looks, and submitted to Lucius as much as he mastered him. In their corporal communion there was a truce of sorts, a merging of dark and light, the sweat of both sides mingling in joint labour towards a common climax; peace, passion, power, all intertwined. Yet it was no less a battle than before. It was a more beautiful battle, a sizzling skirmish, but a struggle, a conquest nonetheless.

Time had passed, the biological clock had sprung back to its rightful place, but Lucius could still feel it, his body responded to the recollections of penetration and acceptance, of tingling and thrusting, sucking and clawing, yielding and trusting. And licking. Licking, lapping, laptapping. All over, but mostly Potter's forehead, savouring that scar, the mark his of master. Thick, wild hair teased his nostrils and Potter's - or his master's - magic tasted of cold metal coated in salty sweat. Sweet, addictive, intoxicating.

Then there was a sliver of light, the scar flashed before Lucius's young eyes. He drew back, frightful of some strange reaction in the infamous scar, seeing through half-shut eyelids the door, ever-so-slightly opened, and there, outlined against the light, a fairer, softer mirror of himself, marred by a look unmistakable even in deep shadow.

The door closed. Potter moaned underneath. He had not seen.

Lucius shuddered and drew a deep breath. His older eyes refocused on Malfoy manor. The chill returned. The fire had died at last. His throbbing heart lay locked in a firm, frozen grip.

There was a whisper at the back of his neck. It accused him. It had seen _all_. This time, it knew the truth, the truth it had had to slip into the darkness of Lucius's lost soul to realise - to reveal a mistake made by lamplight.

The family had always insisted on the remarkable resemblance. How was Harry to have known.

Such deception it was. Lies, lies, _lies_.

Lucius Malfoy had oft been accused of having no heart. However, like all humans, he did, but it was not an _honest one_, the whisper hissed.

'One honest heart,' it rasped, at the very edge of hearing.

'_Two_ honest hearts,' it sighed.

'_No_ honest heart,' it growled and an artic cold gripped Lucius's heart. He gasped.

'This,' the whisper intoned, 'is where you depart.'

Scared half out of his wits and knowing but one thing to do with what little he had left, Lucius Malfoy grabbed his wand, spun around, and emitted a howl of pain that seared through the silence.

In the air, his heart hovered. As his chest solidified again and collapsed, imploded, to compensate for the cavity left behind by his absent organ, Lucius Malfoy stared wide-eyed before him, gurgling something that had as its origin a wish for words but came out a dead man's last, meaningless lament.

Trailing a plume of blood, the corpse of Lucius Malfoy thumped onto the floor, followed by a patter as of light rain, a demon's clotting tears. Moments later, his heart sloshed down beside him and the creature that had once been Draco Malfoy drifted away, still seeking prey.


	24. Nostalgia Potion

**24. Nostalgia Potion**

_Nostalgia Potion. Popular name for the banned Regressive Youth Potion. This complex brew gives its user approximately ten hours of youth while bringing death one year closer. It was banned in 1781 after Esmeralda Torpent had fed it to bought Muggle lovers for years without informing them of the serum's drawbacks. Thirteen men, bodily aged about fifteen to twenty, were found buried all over her extensive gardens. How old they had been originally - or who they were - remains a mystery._

- Peculiar Potions II, _1978_

_Regressive Youth Potion. Aggressive cell poison designed to sequence the subject's DNA through an evolutionary network of self-replicating spells powered by ambient magic. Depending on the exact mixture, the network simulates the development of the subject from infancy to a predetermined stage and then employs a derivative of Polyjuice Potion to physically transform the subject into a younger version of itself. Due to the detrimental effects of rewriting DNA rather than temporarily twisting it into another form, it is estimated that the process shortens the subject's lifespan considerably. That it would shorten it by exactly a year is a modern myth. Since it is impossible to know when any subject would have died otherwise, it could be anything between a few days to several years. Undesired cell reproduction is a common cause of death in subjects._

_The potion was banned in 1781 following the Torpent Affair. However, this has not stopped its use in less law-abiding circles. Many are the wealthy witches and wizards who have died young, at least in appearance. The Ministry of Magic has yet to settle on a way to enforce the prohibition._

- _John Pygram_, Dark Potions Dissected, _1991_

_Wayne Pellegrin had been in Azkaban for three years before it was discovered that it had been his father, under the effects of the Nostalgia Potion, who had committed the murder. In retrospect, all the mentions of the striking father/son resemblance in the media during the trial seem eerily prophetic._

- Infamous Murders, _3rd ed., 1962_


	25. Chrysalis Chamber

**25. Chrysalis Chamber**

We found the broken banisters four floors up; weakened but not rotten. It was clear that whoever had leaked the blood below had been thrust through the banisters. Simple leaning wouldn't have sufficed. To my reporter's nose, the place reeked crime scene. And the stench thickened as we ventured deeper into the castle.

Of the three of us, only Henry seemed curious rather than wary. If not for his brisk pace, it would have taken us much longer to locate the source of the stench. He smelled out the corpse like some particularly elegant bloodhound. While Charles gasped and I whimpered, Henry stepped up to the dark wooden desk, drenched in scientific rubble and spilt liquids, picked up a pair of pincers and a magnifying glass and walked over to the wall to examine the chained Dementor, or what little was left of it.

It was grey and withered, its once billowing black robes hanging limp and dusty on its emaciated body. Its mouth was frozen in an otherworldly expression of terror, suggesting a scream perpetuated beyond the veil, split open at the bottom by a deep gash that disappeared beneath its ripped robes.

Something had burst forth from inside the Dementor, as though it were nothing but a chrysalis for some darker evil.

The Dementors may never have been alive, but I had never expected to see one so irrevocably dead. Nor had I expected to see Draco Malfoy (so elegant and fashion conscious in all those shots I had trawled through when researching his gossip history) look so much like an Azkaban inmate. His hair was long, greasy, tangled, and torn. The nails on his claw-like fingers had grown long and hooked. His cheeks were sunken, his skin greyish. His ribs stood out in stark relief beneath his unnaturally defined pectorals; his waist looked ready to snap. He had starved, but whether that had been the cause of death in this chamber of potential decease - poison bottles, potion jars, pointed weaponry and a chained Dementor on the walls - was not at all clear. Nothing was.

He was propped against the front of the desk; placed, not of his own volition. A trail in the dust suggested he'd been dragged from just in front of the dead Dementor. Scratches in the wood next to his hands indicated some final struggle before he had died, perhaps of starvation, perhaps of poisoning.

Henry squatted beside Malfoy, examining his left hand. 'It's been out of use for quite some time.' He turned to me. 'He was demented long before his body died.' Little did I know he was only half right.

While I remained near the entrance, still paralysed by shock, Charles moved up behind the desk. Indicating a curiously empty stretch of soiled wood, he pointed out that one of the many spilt liquids was most certainly blood, and lots of it. As he and Henry panned the surface with their flashlights, I approached. There was a pattern to the coagulation of the blackened blood. There were outlines.

And suddenly we had a new mystery on our hands: Where was the body now?

We eventually found it - him - on a king-sized bed, laid out in its centre, arms crossed across his chest, or what was left of it. He was in a curious state somewhere between decomposition and mummification. At least, Henry called it curious. I mostly found it nauseating. If not for his still present glasses and barely discernible scar, identifying Harry Potter would not have been easy. He had been dead for a long time. While Henry was certain his body had initially been preserved in some way, he was equally sure that Potter's death predated Malfoy's.

The fact that someone or something had propped Malfoy against the desk and put Potter on the bed was worrying enough. That something had also placed Potter's heart on a small bedside table was downright terrifying.

Next to the heart, I found the second journal.

We decided to look through Malfoy's chamber (as we called it then) once more before we reported our findings to the Ministry. Borrowing a demented Bellatrix Lestrange with, we firmly claimed, the best of intentions was one thing. Letting the leaders of the wizarding world learn about the death of their favourite boy hero through the pages of the Quibbler was out of the question. Ms Lovegood had made that perfectly clear. But with me being an investigating journalist, Henry an ambitious scientist, and Charles a Muggle not much bothered with wizarding procedure, they could hardly expect us to leave the crime scene untouched. We had put our lives on the line - and we wanted something in return.

Though, in retrospect, it might have been better had I left the journal for the investigators to find. Still, considering the response I got when I did bring it forward, it does seem unlikely.

And leaving my other souvenir in the state I found it certainly wasn't an option.

I was snapping some shots of the empty chamber when I heard faint breathing from behind one of the large shelves stacked with jars and bottles. Muster the courage to move a single muscle took me long enough for Henry and Charles to return and ask what on Earth was taking me so long. With them as backup, I advanced on the shelves, peered into a dark corner, and saw a small, dark figure huddled there. It looked like the insubstantial shadow of a goblin.

'Don't mind me,' it muttered, 'high'm just dis-hintegrating quietly towards my dhoom, in a dhark, dhank corner, has requested.' Its large head turned towards me, ears flapping. It stiffened, as if only then realising I was not just a figment of its morbid imagination, and it solidified, eyes glinting in the darkness. 'Hand I'm stuck. Hand horribly, horribly bored. Reminds me hoff han old goblin hit, hit does.'

Charles thought I was slaughtering a pig. Henry made it stop by pointing out that he'd be up for slaughtering some less tangible ham.


	26. Death by Division

**26. Death by Division**

Tom Riddle had died. He had been dead. He had drifted through the world as something both more and less than a ghost, an incorporeal creature kept together by unquenchable desires, for revenge, power, a return to _life_. He had been a parasite, living through others, preying on the very essence of life, learning to sense the presence of other soul hunters like himself. And he knew without a doubt that the being hunting him through the dark woods was something much worse than a simple, mindless Dementor.

He staggered, stumbled, ran at intervals through the irregular undergrowth. He was too unbalanced, too unsettled by the revenge he would never get, too troubled by Potter's death to focus properly. There were wards and traps all through the woods surrounding Malfoy Manor. He couldn't Disapparate and any hex was likely to misfire. He needed to get out into the open fields, needed to get his bearings, needed to _see_ his pursuer coming.

He had been lured into the woods. While he was wandering near the edge of the Malfoy gardens, seething with anger and disappointment, a voice had called for him.

Had he been in a more stable state of mind, he would have demanded that the speaker come to him, into the garden. As it was, he stalked into the woods, demanding an explanation that never came. And then he had sensed it. The danger, death defeated, an undead soul. The hunger. It stood between him and the garden, a dark outline against the moonlit hedges. Then, thrown to the ground by his own hex, he had turned, and he had run.

There was such immense power. Lord Voldemort had been the most powerful dark wizard in the world before his death and was no less powerful in his resurrected form. But this was power beyond magic. A primal power over life and death, ripping through the fabric of reality, a black hole in the web of life. There was an opening in the undergrowth. The woods ended. Tom Riddle lurched into the open field. And came face to face with the darkness.

'Hello, Tom,' said Bellatrix, smiling. 'Looking for me?'

Tom breathed through his nostrils, steadying himself. 'Not particularly, no. Did you - want something?'

'Dinner? Tonight?'

Tom frowned, his mind curiously sluggish. 'I'm - rather busy.'

'Yes. I noticed. And I suppose you've also been too _busy_ to get me out of Azkaban, no?'

There was no point in answering. Tom's hand edged towards his wand. Bellatrix was unarmed.

'Still,' she continued, 'it worked out for the best, in the end.'

The world flashed green. Bellatrix crumpled. Tom turned, and stopped, eyes widening. A ghost stood before him; a spectre, a disturbance in the visual spectrum, a being of darkness, a perfect replica of Lucius's son. Tom could see him clearly, and yet his senses insisted there was nothing there. It was all in his mind. Inside him. A chill seeped into his chest. Draco's arm was stretched out before him. Tom looked down. The arm penetrated his chest.

It had a grip on his heart.

A voice hissed inside his mind. 'You destroyed our life, you heartless beast!'

Claw-like hands clutched his head from behind, long fingernails digging into his papery cheeks. 'You always were a naughty boy, Tom,' purred Bellatrix and yanked him backwards to devour his soul. His heart burst from his chest and Tom Riddle finally died from the fatal division he had suffered all his life, torn between mind and emotion.

When she was done feeding, Bellatrix turned her attention to the creature still cradling her victim's heart in its outstretched hand. 'You have me to thank, you know,' she said, 'for not leading them to you before the gestation was complete. Though,' she grinned, 'that _could_ just have been my self-preservation instinct. I rather enjoy freedom, you see.' Her eyes narrowed. 'You tried to resurrect him didn't you, Draco dear? My poor darling Draco. It's unhealthy to get so _attached_. Makes your mind snap.' She turned to go. 'Still, who am I to judge you? I've grown awfully _attached_ to this body, even if I don't need it. Like you, I'm immortal, as long as I find food to sustain me.' She turned back. 'But I suspect you don't have that problem, having gone through such a - complete transformation. Most intriguing. And, yes, I can feel it. Your power exceeds mine. But I shouldn't let it bother me, or you. You're an amoral creature, Draco, just like your father. You won't stop me. Revenge powers you. Single-minded. Like father like son.' She walked away. 'He would have killed you too, of course.' She disappeared into the mist. 'Fascinating family.'


	27. The Memory of Martyrs

**27. The Memory of Martyrs**

Like a scavenger, the Prophet pounced on the Potter murder the moment the Aurors went public with it. It was potent material - Harry Potter kidnapped and murdered by his old school adversary, the son of the infamous Lucius Malfoy, who then commits suicide by dementing himself. Even his death was a violation - of the Dementor, that poor misunderstood creature. Or, if you were less politically correct, Draco Malfoy did something admirable, at last, in both dying for his sins and taking a bloody Dementor with him into the Underworld.

The People were in mourning. Their boy hero had been slain by a dark, dragon prince (a favourite description in less reputable publications), a perverted madman who had killed when he couldn't convert - to the Dark side of magic, of sexuality. Pictures of Draco's withered form was reproduced ad nauseam. But Potter was still the dashing young Quidditch player, smiling shyly at the camera, a charmed-up reminder of the beauty that had been lost to depraved ugliness. No one cared to remember that young Mr Malfoy had once been voted one of the most beautiful wizards alive. Because he wasn't anymore. He was dead, and good riddance.

Only the Quibbler published old photos of Draco and new ones of Potter. Few people cared. The readership was cultish to begin with, outsiders in a crowded little world. Only the Quibbler dared publish the idea that something had burst out of the Dementor, that it hadn't died of starvation or sickness. Only the Quibbler noted that the corpse of Malfoy had been moved by someone. Only the Quibbler had me, and only I sought to redeem Draco Malfoy. Only I wrote stories about a tragic love affair. Only I had the diaries. And only the Quibbler would give me the benefit of the doubt. Only Luna believed me.

I was accused of having written the diaries myself, of having fabricated the story. I was unstable to begin with and the gruesome sights that had greeted me at Hogwarts had completely unhinged me. I was a tragic woman damaged by cheap romance novels, unable to come to terms with a reality of true darkness and hate. And furthermore, I was a twisted pervert trying to defile the memory of the Boy Who Lived.

Where I saw a young man half mad with grief trying to finish his boyfriend's assignments by overdosing on Polyjuice, the mainstream media - and the vast majority of witches and wizards - saw a mad murderer trying to cover up his crime until he could escape, or finish whatever dastardly experiments he had been conducting.

The general public wanted to make a martyr of their dead hero. They wanted the Boy Who Was Murdered, not the young man who might have cheated on his male companion and then suffered an accident during a domestic squabble. It wasn't romantic enough, not traditional enough, not a worthy ending to the fairytale.

The press had been turned inside out. The Prophet published fairytales, the Quibbler the truth. And only the latter dared speculate about the sudden deaths, the unexplained murders, the burnt-out Prophet offices. They were accidents, the deeds of deranged madmen and arsonists. That was what people wanted to believe. It was quite enough that He Who Must Not Be Named, whose mutilated remains had been found by a Muggle farmer, had been replaced by The Strange, the Wizarding World's very own bogey-woman. No one dared speculate that the Prince of Darkness was still at large, taking revenge on those who had published the truth about his crimes.

Or, as only I and the Quibbler would have it, the ludicrous lies.

The Quibbler suffered no accidents except a sudden drop in subscribers. Even our loonies wanted a simple world, and a dead saint to protect them.


	28. In the Chill of Mourning

**28. In the Chill of Mourning**

Hermione Granger prided herself on a practical approach to funerals: don dark clothing, mostly black; arrive late; look harried enough to repel even the most clingy fellow mourner; shed a tear but divert the earnest floods inside and drown in the rhythm of eulogy, watching the happy moments flash by. Go home and work even harder to prevent any future funeral visits.

As the priest droned in the background and Hermione daydreamt of Quidditch matches, quills, red rags and patches, a silent whisper brushed against her neck and broke the soothing rhythm of remembrances. Practical gave way to panic as icy breath chanted 'honest heart, honest heart, honest heart', beating against her mind, penetrating her chest, enveloping her shivering heart.

Hermione did not dare scream, but her mind cried out in noiseless agony. She could do nothing but wait, her heart adapting to the rhythm of the cold lament.

_At least, she thought, people may cling as much as they bloody well want if_ I _am in the coffin and quite, quite dead._

And then, her life flashed before her eyes. 


	29. Transformation

**29. Transformation**

__

22 December 2001

This room is a marvel. It brought us together and now it supplies us with whatever magic we need in this wretched, dead place. It never occurred to me that the Room would transcend the dimensions in this way, existing in two places (more?) at once. But if it hadn't, we probably wouldn't still be here, even though it's the perfect hiding-place, without the aid of magic or that Muggle elektricitea.

* * *

10 June 2002

Room of Requirement still a marvel. Whether it brings the books from the Restricted Section or if it simply conjures them, I don't know. And don't care. They're here and they are magnificent. Such power there is in darkness. Harry would have told me to throw them away, to burn them, to forget I ever read a single word of it. But Harry's not here, not here to light my darkness.

And the flame went out before he

I am lost without him. The bastard!

I must rekindle the flame. The darkness beckons.

Such power.

* * *

20 June 2002

Catching a Dementor. Not so hard, if you follow the instructions.

Keeping a Dementor in the same room as yourself. Very depressing.

Not that there's a noticeable difference.

* * *

24 June 2002

If Harry were demented, I could cast my Patronus into him and he would live again. Or rather, he would be Harry again, even if he wouldn't be properly alive. He would be Harry. And he could feed off my soul.

He already does, doesn't he?

But he's not demented. He's dead. A slice of my life-force will not work. All of it might.

The Shining King of Dementor lore wasn't one person but two. In the stronger brother's body, the soul of the weaker could continue to exist in this realm, and powered by that soul, the stronger brother's body and mind could keep walking, keep working.

The idiot brother never cast a Patronus. It was an instinctive reaction and he cast forward his whole self, discarding his crippled form completely. And then he resurrected his dead or demented brother (it's hard to tell which) by complete body invasion. Still, it seems to have been a viable arrangement. Tales of the Shining King's wisdom can't be accounted for except by concluding that the brighter brother lived on in symbiosis with the idiot's soul.

It might work. It will work!

We two will be one.

Before my darkness consumes me.

* * *

17 July 2002

The potion should prevent the Dementor from dispersing my life-force. The sedative should allow me enough time to complete the transference. There's no way to test it, of course. But what have I got to lose? It might be suicide, but at least I died trying to save Harry. Save the man I murdered.

I believe I wrote that to strengthen my resolve.

It worked.

I never thought I'd kiss something quite so hideous.

* * *

((undated entries))

It worked

but it's intolerable. I'm trapped in a library of Harry

but he is long gone

forever gone.

I remember the cupboard, I remember the hatred, I remember the danger, I remember the love, I remember Ron, I'm reading a life, over and over and over again but I'm only reminded of all that I've lost.

All the experiences are here. All the knowledge. But not the love. No emotion. I'm dressed in an empty shell and it is driving me insane. Even more insane.

The Shining King wasn't two men. It was the idiot with the wisdom of the bright.

I am the idiot.

And if I hadn't loved him so much, this body could have sustained me. But all I can feel is the emptiness. All I can see in the mirror is death, death, DEATH.

I must let Harry go. I must let go of this obsession. I cannot stay. I have to go.

And get revenge.

Embrace the darkness because it's all that I have left.

* * *

Who am I writing for? Why?

I suffer from a narrative compulsion. A pedantic madness.

* * *

Still I wonder: Was his heart dishonest? What is a heart anyway but a machine? Does the soul's darkness taint the machine that purifies the fuel of the body?

I hate it. Honesty plays no part in the life of a heart! You either have a heart or you don't. And if you don't, you should be dead.

My father doesn't deserve a heart. Dishonest hearts should not be. Death is better.

My mind is muddled. I must leave. Must!

His memories drive me to madness!

((random scribbles and blood stains))


	30. Scapegoat

**30. Scapegoat**

I'm still uncertain about why I stayed with Henry during those last few weeks. But I'm fairly certain he stayed with me because I was a suitable research partner. He could get partners in more amorous crimes elsewhere, and easily. He didn't even make a decent attempt at hiding his affairs.

Not that I noticed, at first. I was as obsessed with the Potter case and redeeming Draco as Henry was hungry for the scientific advances Malfoy had made in seeking to resurrect his lover. We were a good team, even if we rarely if ever offered each other any direct support. Our obsessions intersected, as did our living space. The chill crept upon me slowly.

With paparazzi and reporters hunting me (the mad Malfoy-fancier) and the pay-cuts that had hit every level of the Quibbler, I relied on the protection and financial support of Henry more than ever. I couldn't leave him. I couldn't decide to sleep on the couch. And I couldn't stand the sight of his girlfriends as they came to call.

The paparazzi loved those little visits. Long, shapely legs, big breasts; it made for excellent pictures and yet another reason why I had snapped. I had been betrayed by my man. I was transferring my shunned affections onto an idealised dead gay man, one who could never betray me, a safe (if rather stiff) bet. The tabloids had a field day.

And as always, the envelope was pushed to push the putrid paper into the paying hands of The People. Dark hints of my presence in the vicinity of the peculiar crimes permitted began appearing in print, giving credence to the speculations of The People. Had I not been in the Prophet office the very same day it was torched? (I had, giving my former editor a number of pieces of my mind.) Had I not been exposed as a fraud by the very reporters who were now dead? (That rather depended on your favoured Truth, but in essence, they were correct. I could do little to quench the rumours.)

The final straw was when Henry made a joke about maybe putting me on display in the attic and charge the paparazzi an entrance fee. He did it for the amusement of his latest female catch. And right in front of me.

The following morning, there was blood splattered on Henry's silk sheets. Most of it had been spread around when I, in a daze, had picked up his still moist heart. All I was able to think was how ordinary it looked, how healthy it had been, how the dishonesty and darkness had made no mark on it. How similar it was to Potter's. An amoral machine.

'Alas,' said I to the modern, moist Yorick in my hand as the Aurors burst in. The paparazzi had heard my early morning scream. But I was silent then. In retrospect, I should have seemed more upset.

I only really missed Henry when I found I couldn't afford a decent lawyer. Not that it would have made much difference. My insisting that Malfoy was to blame endeared me to no one. Those who would turn Potter into a martyr and a saint were overjoyed that my articles could now be conclusively labelled the ravings of a madwoman, and Malfoy's journals a piece of fanatic fiction.

Still, I had some reliable counsel on my side. Something that made even my worst detractors doubt. Two judges died of sudden heart-failure trying to pronounce a death sentence (dementing was no longer politically correct, after all).

I was to be shipped off to Azkaban. And with the state of the prison, it was thought to be as good as a death sentence.

My cold counsel did not agree.


	31. Flashes of Light

**31. Flashes of Light**

'He won't listen to me,' Harry sighed. 'No matter what I say, it's as if all his trust in me is gone.' Sitting straight-backed in a chair that should have encouraged loose-limbed slumber, he watched the flames caress the blackened wood in the ancient, scorched hearth. Hermione squeezed his shoulder again, reflecting with no small amount of dismay that her depressed friend was staring straight at a metaphor for his dysfunctional relationship - one that he would forever refuse to acknowledge.

But she was no longer certain that Harry was the wood turning to cinders. And it no longer seemed to matter. Draco, for all his many faults, was family - not seldom churlish but still cherished like some eccentric uncle or curious cousin.

'Give him time. It's - not a good idea to try to - impose your truth on him.'

'_My_ truth? There's no '_my_ truth'! It's _the_ truth!'

'Yes, yes,' she could see Harry was getting angry, and then there would be no reasoning with him. 'I don't doubt it. I don't doubt you! But try to see it from his perspective. I mean, you _didn't _sleep with _him_, even if you _thought_ you did. And he can't _know_ that you _didn't_ - know.'

'Well, he should _trust_ me! I'd never betray him like that! Never!'

'I know. But look at his past. He had to betray a family that had betrayed him since birth! It's all lies and deceit and betrayal. He's suspicious by nature. You know that.'

Harry was sulking. He was an expert at it.

'He's even a bit - paranoid. Which has kept the both of you _alive_! Just - just give him time.'

Harry sighed, again. 'I'll try. But he keeps pushing me.'

Hermione smiled. 'And you don't push him? Harry, your relationship began with a duel. Doesn't that tell you something?'

She had meant it as a joke. Mostly. But Harry was Harry and Harry got angry. He stormed up. 'Yeah, maybe it does! Maybe it tells me I should just _stop pushing_! Because I can't - I can't stand him looking at me as if I - as if-! So maybe, maybe I should just stop pushing, and _leave_!' There were tears on his cheeks as he left her house.

He never came back. And the priest droned in the background as Harry's casket was lowered into the ground, and a whisper brushed against Hermione's mind. It could no longer blame her. She had tried to soothe, to counsel, to mediate.

She had an honest heart.

And as the chill drew back, Hermione felt strangely lucky she still had any heart at all.


	32. Mightier than the Truth

**32. Mightier than the Truth**

If I learned anything from the way the Potter murder was treated by the mainstream media, it's that people often find it easier to believe fiction than the hard, cold truth. And so, I'm turning the truth into fiction. I need to tell the world what a wonderful and real person Harry Potter was, and portray in some small way the love he and Draco shared. I must make them see the young man and not the martyr. The dead live in the memory of the living. But the living remember him all wrong. Sainthood gives birth to an Idea while destroying the person behind it.

I cannot allow that. If they want fiction, if they want a fairytale, I'll give them what they want. I'll give them fussy, I'll give them fun, and I'll force the medicine of truth down their throats with just a spoonful of fiction.

(Make that a big spoon. A ladle.)

Gobble delights in telling me of the good old days, always making sure to contrast them to the hell that is now. But perhaps one has to descend into the underworld to find the fiction behind the truth. Perhaps you have to die to truly appreciate the marvel of life.

They say the pen is mightier than the sword.

I say fiction is mightier than the truth.

And I suffer a narrative compulsion.

A pedantic form of madness.


	33. Work in Progress

**33. Work in Progress**

_**Chamber of Revelations, draft 1.**_

Draco Malfoy was a man of extremes; Malfoys often were. For instance, Gregerious Malfoy (1542-1616) turned extremity into somewhat of an art form. Of course, being a Malfoy, Gregerious displayed a singular dislike for devoting himself to anything but art made from an absolutely extreme amount of extremities. The nearby peasants from whom he harvested said extremities thought this to be a very extreme approach to art indeed. However, as Gregerious did not restrict his modelling to the use of traditional extremities, those who got their cranial protuberances cut off didn't hold their opinions about him for any extended periods of time. Those that got off with only arms and legs cut off did, however, harbour such an extreme aversion towards their artistic landlord that Gregarious Malfoy eventually died a very extreme death indeed. Though with a distinct lack of personal extremities still attached.

D suggests cuts. G just being morbid.


	34. Falling

**34. Falling**

__

16 May 2002

Have fortified myself with drink. The idiom obviously has little bearing on reality.

Harry still not home.

* * *

17 May 2002

blood everywhere. dark ugly dishonest death has a curious smell

my voice is gone - think the same is true of my throat

that explains part of the smell in any case

why do I ((bloodstain))

I am a dead man writing

my dishonest heart is gone ((impossible to transcribe))

* * *

20 May 2002

He just went through the banisters. Hadn't meant to push so hard. Was so blinded by rage, didn't even see where we were.

He was leaving me. I grabbed him. He pushed me. I pushed back.

Then there was falling, falling

He just fell and fell and fell and my spells wouldn't work in this dead shadow of a castle.

Then there was blood.

I couldn't move.

I moved him to our Room today. Carried him all the way up. Gobble won't stop moaning.

I am lost without him. My vision is clouded with darkness.

He's gone.

And I'm dead.


	35. Queen of Hearts

**35. Queen of Hearts**

The Dementors went mad when one of them died, just as the First One had predicted. Death brought with it life. Life brought with it feelings. Feelings brought terror. They fed on each other.

Azkaban was thrust into chaos. The Dementors, once known only for their cold silence and the terror they brought, roared, raved, and cackled their way through its dark, wet, cold corridors and ancient crevices. Azkaban was aflame with unleashed souls, a nuclear reactor of undead spirits imploding into each other. Had I been a seasoned novelist, I'd have been able to better capture the horrific splendour of this craggy, black island alight with arcane magic. As it is, I can only hint at its magnificence. These are merely the awed memories of one who saw it all from a rickety old boat on a stormy sea, scared half out of her mind.

Then I stepped onto Azkaban rock (the ferryman would have turned back had I not seen a story in the making and forced him to dock - a condemned soul forever seeking the Story; the irony is not lost on me) and with me came the end to this demented war.

The Dementor King arrived that night. It strode into the prison complex, sought out those few Dementors still alive, and killed them all.

Without the King, the Dementors would have disappeared that night, devouring themselves till there would be naught but a single self-demented creature left. The King saved them. And, as I came with the King, they offer me the special treatment befitting a Queen. Kisses all around and special treats to keep my spirits up in this soul-devouring place while I work on this, the greatest story of my career.

Today, it was one of the Lestranges, I believe. A meagre meal but I guess I should be grateful.

I'm kept in the old visiting area and they do keep on their very best behaviour when they come to keep me company. Or bring me company, whichever the King chooses. He is my constant shadow, and the reason they defer so dementedly to me.

Ah, I kill myself.

Though, being immortal, that seems unlikely. Still, this is a merrier kind of madness, I suppose. And I have so much time to work.

Honest, good work.

The First One is long gone.

I am the Queen of Hearts.

The whispers tell me so.

fin

---------------------- 

I'd love to hear what you thought of the story. And I'd love for The Fine Line fans not to lynch me. 

If you haven't read The Fine Line, you should do so. It begins 'Draco Malfoy was a man of extremes. Malfoys often were.' (You'll find it by going to my author page.) 

If this story doesn't prove a complete failure, there may be a sequel. (Or should I say a second sequel?) It would roughly deal with what would happen when The Strange decides to take a more agressive stance in wizarding politics and the King of the Damned returns to the mainland. Sounds delightfully cheesy, does it not? ;) 


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